Test all spirits | The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Photo by author, Lake of Galilee from the side of Capernaum in Israel, 2019.

Praise and glory to you, O God our Father on this first day of resumption of work and school. Many of us are so eager to go back to work and studies, hoping to make a good start for new year 2021. And your words today are so helpful to us all.

Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God.

1 John 4:1-3

In this age with an overload of information and influences from media, so many of us are led astray Lord because we have always forgotten to test all spirits that compete for our attention.

Give us the wisdom, Lord, as well as the perseverance and discipline to test all spirits, to discern them in silence and prayers that we may not be misled by false teachings and false hopes.

Open our eyes and our hearts in order to find you coming to us even in the most simplest occasions in our lives or in the most difficult situations we are into. Like the magi, may we have that keen sense of interest in observing things from the most usual to the unusual ones.

And let us start this discernment of spirits by first cleansing ourselves of our sins and impurities as we heed your call to “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt.4:17).

As we continue to retell and relive the story of Christmas, may we be like the town of Capernaum ready to welcome Christ’s coming with his light to dispel all darkness caused by our sins, frustrations and disappointments, pains and hurts especially from the past year so we may move forward through personal conversion in our Lord. Amen.