Part 1 - Walking in a Gift Doesn’t Automatically Mean Alignment With God

Today we’re talking about something that might offend some people, but it needs to be said:

Walking in a gift does not automatically mean you are walking in alignment with God—or that you have a genuine relationship with Him. Your gift can function while your heart is far from the Giver.

Yeah. Read that again.

• You can dream.

• You can see visions.

• You can prophesy.

• You can speak in tongues.

• You can have incredible wisdom.

• You can heal.

• You can perform miracles.

And none of those things automatically prove that you are living in obedience to God or true relationship with God.

I know that sounds contradictory. Because naturally we think:

If my dreams keep coming to pass, I must be close to God.

If I can prophesy accurately, surely I’m in alignment.

But where did the Bible actually say that?

Matthew 7:21–23 is honestly one of the scariest passages in the Bible to me. Because Jesus said something very different.

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?

23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Jesus says not everyone calling Him “Lord” will enter the Kingdom, but the person who does the will of His Father.

Then the people start listing their spiritual résumé highlighting their gifts.

• Didn’t we prophesy in Your name?

• Didn’t we cast out demons?

• Didn’t we perform wonders?

And Jesus tells them:

“I never knew you.”

That is heavy. Because these weren’t people saying:

But Lord, I was an atheist. No.

Their argument was: “Look at everything my spiritual gift did!”

They were pointing to their gifts as evidence that they knew God.

And Jesus basically brings them back to:

But did you know Me? Did you do the will of My Father?

That should shake us….

Because some of us are using the exact same evidence.

• I dream.

• I speak in tongues.

• God gives me revelation.

• People are blessed when I pray.

Okay.

But do you know Him intimately? Do you spend personal time with him?

Because apparently, you can have spiritual activity happening around your life and still lack intimacy. And we forget something important: having a gift or spiritual experience is not exclusive to believers only. People who do not follow God can still have dreams and spiritual experiences. Pharaoh received prophetic dreams from God (Genesis 41), and King Nebuchadnezzar received dreams from God (Daniel 2; 4)—yet neither man was walking in covenant relationship with God when those dreams were given.

So a gift or spiritual experience by itself is not proof of relationship or alignment with God. The real question is not simply, “What gift do you have?” but “Do you know God, and is your life surrendered to Him?”

Next part,  let's go back again what Jesus said:

“I never knew you.”

That’s relationship language. When Jesus says, “I never knew you,” He isn’t saying He didn’t know who they were. He is essentially saying, “We were never in a true relationship of closeness and fellowship together.” They knew how to operate in spiritual gifts and works, but they did not truly know Him to do the father's will.

And He calls them workers of lawlessness. Meaning their lives were operating outside submission to God’s will. They were doing things according to their own will, desires, and way.

That’s the danger.

A gift can be functioning while your obedience is dying.

And if you’re not careful, the gift can actually deceive you into thinking everything is okay.

I Know This Personally

I’m not writing this looking down at anybody. I know this because I’ve lived it.

Even when I was lukewarm, I used to have dreams. And some of those dreams happened.

So imagine if I had used that as my measuring stick.

Well, I’m dreaming and things are happening, so obviously God and I are good.

No. I wasn’t in alignment.

I wasn’t walking with God the way I should have been.

The dreams didn’t prove intimacy. They proved that I had spiritual experiences.

There is a difference.

And I think this is where some people are stuck.

They’re waiting for the gift to stop functioning before they admit something is wrong spiritually.

Maybe you’re thinking: If God wasn’t pleased with me, why am I still dreaming?

Why can I still prophesy?

But maybe that’s the wrong question.

Maybe the real questions should be:

Am I truly being transformed into the image of Christ?

Is my life becoming more like Him?

Am I actually obeying God? Because this is the goal. We do not enter the Kingdom of God because of our gifts, spiritual experiences, or what we were able to do in His name. As Jesus makes clear in Matthew 7:21, what matters is doing “the will of My Father in heaven.”

Our gifts are not our ticket into the Kingdom—a life surrendered to Christ, transformed by Him, and walking in obedience to God is what matters. Because Matthew 7 already tells us that supernatural works are not enough evidence to make it to heaven.

Let’s Get Uncomfortable for a Minute

Because this is where Christianity can get weird.

You speak in tongues on Sunday…then curse people out on Monday.

You play worship music…then happily play worldly music celebrating the exact things God calls sinful.

You prophesy…but you still deliberately keep yourself in environments you know are pulling you away from God.

You post Scripture…but privately you are feeding appetites you would be embarrassed for anybody at church to know about.

And because the gift still works, you tell yourself:

“I’m okay.”

Are you?

I’m not asking whether you’re gifted. I’m asking whether you’re surrendered and in true relationship.

Here’s a question I sometimes think exposes things quickly: If Jesus were physically sitting beside you

• would you play that song?

• Would you say that curse word?

• Would you watch that movie or TV show?

• Would you go there?

• Would you have that conversation?

If your immediate answer is:

“Absolutely not!”

Then… why are we comfortable doing it now? Because Jesus isn’t physically visible?

We say we believe the Holy Spirit lives in us. So why do we sometimes behave as though His presence disappears when church ends?

That’s hypocrisy… Becoming comfortable with things that grieve God.

Intimacy makes you conscious of God’s  presence.

The closer you become to God, the harder it becomes to casually enjoy things that grieve Him. Not because you’re trying to perform Christianity.

Because you love Him, know his word and standard.

The Truth... Some of Us Love the World More Than We Want to Admit

There. I said it.

• Some prophetic Christians still love the world.

• Some tongue-speaking Christians still love the world.

• Some people with powerful dreams still love the world.

And the biggest problem sometimes isn’t even that reality.

It’s that we won’t admit it.

Because admitting:

“I actually love this thing more than I love God ” forces us to confront something uncomfortable.

It makes us question everything we thought we knew. It exposes us and forces us to examine our foundation—because maybe some of what we believed about God wasn’t actually biblical. Maybe it was simply tradition, cultural norms, religious practices, or even lies we accepted as truth because no one ever taught us differently.

Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go of the thing.

It’s admitting that what we called normal may have never been God’s standard in the first place. But God can work with honesty. What becomes dangerous is when we use our gifts to hide from the actual condition of our hearts. Your gift is not your relationship.

The beginning of real intimacy with God starts with honesty:

“God, I’m not where I thought I was. ”Maybe I’m more excited about being gifted than being holy.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Because you can’t repent from something you’re determined to pretend isn’t there.

Part 2—we’re going deeper. Stay tuned. 👀

Music Time 🎧

K3ndrick — Power of My Own.