The Passion of the Christian

Many tender-minded Christians fear to sin against love by daring to inquire
into anything that comes wearing the cloak of Christianity and breathing the
name of Jesus. They dare not examine the credentials of the latest prophet
to hit their town lest they be guilty of rejecting something which may be of
God. . . .This is supposed to indicate a high degree of spirituality. But in
sober fact it indicates no such thing. It may indeed be evidence of the
absence of the Holy Spirit.

Gullibility is not synonymous with spirituality. Faith is not a mental habit
leading its possessor to open his mouth and swallow everything that has
about it the color of the supernatural. Faith keeps its heart open to
whatever is of God, and rejects everything that is not of God, however
wonderful it may be.

³Try the spirits² is a command of the Holy Spirit to the church (1 John
4:1). We may sin as certainly by approving the spurious as by rejecting the
genuine. . . .To appraise things with a heart of love and then to act on the
results is an obligation resting upon every Christian in the world.

--A.W. Tozer