How to Avoid Tainting His Message

There’s a well-known game called, “Telephone” where one person in a group of people is given a sentence to repeat to only one other person in the group. Then that second person repeats what he heard to the next person, again, without anyone else hearing what was said. By the time the last person hears the sentence, it bears little resemblance to the original message. In this game, it’s actually funny to hear how much the message had changed.

But, whatever God speaks to us, we must not change.

We who hear directly from God must protect the words that He speaks to us.

We can taint His words in many ways, but let’s look at what are perhaps the most frequent ways:

Three Ways His Message Can Be Tainted

Changing the words. Changing the words that God speaks to us is the quickest and easiest way to taint His message. When we do this, sometimes the entire intent of His message is changed—a very dangerous thing to do!

Keep the words as complete and accurate and in order as possible! A particular sentence can mean something entirely different by changing just one or two words!

Changing the spirit of the words. God’s Word to us corporately and personally are spirit and they are life. The spirit of His words are always in love, for God is love.

But, we can taint His words with a spirit other than love.

For example, God gives us a word for a close friend. They are encouraging words, meant to give that person hope in the midst of their battle. But, we might harbor impatience towards that friend because of their continual complaining to us about their situation. So, when we give that person those encouraging, hope-filled words, we inject our impatience into the spirit of those words and the person is less-blessed due to our tainting of the message.

So, what we should say in love is, “God wants you to know that He sees your distress and anguish. And He’s heard your cries for help. He knows what you are going through and wants you to be patient as the victory is yours.”

But instead, due to our impatience, we speak those words with a tone of frustration and a “get-with-the-program!” attitude. Thus, tainting the spirit of the words with our own emotions and lessening the blessing.

Adding to His Words. This is a great temptation for many people and especially for those that seek the glory that rightly belongs to God.

Katherine Kuhlman told a story about her then husband who often gave a particular testimony when he preached. She told her friend how much she loved hearing him tell that testimony because it gets better and better each time he tells it!

Obviously, her husband was susceptible to tainting the message as he was given to exaggeration.

Are We Susceptible to Tainting the Message?

How can we find out if we are susceptible to tainting whatever God speaks to us? It’s really quite easy—all we have to do is listen to ourselves when we repeat information or describe an event that happened in the natural realm.

Are we being as accurate and pure as possible with our narration or are we sloppy, not being careful with our words? Do we change the story? Do we give the story a different slant/spirit? Or do we exaggerate to get a better response?

Recognizing the ways that we might taint God’s words to us is the first step to avoiding this temptation. We discussed only three methods, but hopefully you caught the spirit of the topic and are now more aware of the importance of safe-guarding and correctly expressing His words to us.

After all, He desires you to hear His voice every day and to express His words as purely as He spoke them to you.

It is my prayer for you that Father will continue to help you to hear His voice, and more and more frequently.

With God’s grace and in His peace,

Gary

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