How do we know if our impressions are from the Lord?
In His love, the Lord has created us with the ability to think and to reason. Our minds are the most intricate and complicated of computers. With the ability to think and reason we have been given the privilege of choice, the privilege of carrying out our own ideas, which gives us satisfaction and joy. God in His great love created us to be happy.
As a rule, our impressions are ideas that come to our minds from the things that we see, hear, feel, taste, and experience. Our surrounding environment does a great deal to influence what we think about, and usually we create our own environment; we choose what we want to read, watch, eat, where we go, what we think about, with whom we associate, and our employment. We also have inherited tendencies and familial influences. The things they talk about and the way they do things, the things that they value in life and the morals of the home all enter into the impressions that come to our mind. We often have no realization of what influences us to think the way we do.
The impressions we get about what to do or not to do are caused by some function or opportunity in front of us awaiting a decision, or it may be an impression to say or not to say something to a certain person. It may be a business deal you have the opportunity to enter into. You make decisions about all these things and more, according to your impressions.
The way to ensure ourselves against following the wrong impression is to live a life of prayer. If we study our Bibles faithfully and have a prayer relationship with the Lord, He will not lead us astray. He will allow us to build our characters by letting us do the choosing that we think is best, but we must compare our impressions with what we have learned from the study of the inspired writings. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so we can take the Bible as our guide and standard. Anything that contradicts the Bible is not from God.
Satan will try to put things in our minds, but if we fortify our minds with the word of God we will recognize truth from error. It is necessary that we pray earnestly before we make important decisions, for we are fighting against a horrible enemy, and he is very deceptive and much more cunning and intelligent than we are, so, we must have the Lord to help us deal with the devil. There is no way that we can win the battle except that we follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
“All true obedience comes from the heart. It was heart work with Christ. And if we consent, He will so identify Himself with our thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity to His will, that when obeying Him we shall be but carrying out our own impulses. The will, refined and sanctified, will find its highest delight in doing His service. When we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. Through an appreciation of the character of Christ, through communion with God, sin will become hateful to us.” The Desire of Ages, 668.