Daily Devotional
False Prophets for Profit

August 14, 2023

Ponder This

False prophets never get enough. They are greedy. We all make mistakes. I’ve made plenty of them, and I’ll make plenty more, but false prophets are people who have rotten characters. They are not merely mistaken. They are willfully wicked, and every one of them once knew the truth. Peter said in this passage, “They have forsaken the right way.” It’s not that they’ve never known. It is that they have willfully, deliberately forsaken the right way. Peter went on to say in 2 Peter 2:21, “For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.” They know what’s right, and they refuse it. They willfully prostitute the Gospel of Jesus Christ for gain.

• When is it important to spend personal time in the Word to discern God’s truth?
• When have you been tricked into buying something that was not worth what you paid? How did you guard yourself from making the same mistake another time? How can this apply to being wise about those to whom you listen?

Practice This

Pray and ask God to help you practice discernment with the voices and teachers to whom you listen.