#45 How To Spot False Teaching And Stay Anchored

The loud world is not neutral, and the most confident voice in your feed is not automatically the voice of God. We're getting ready for summer by talking about something that can sound intense at first, but ends up being deeply freeing: false teachings and how to spot them.

We start in 1 John 4 with a clear command to test the spirits, because not every message that sounds spiritual carries the Spirit of Truth. From there, we walk through practical ways to discern what you’re taking in from social media, podcasts, music, and even your own emotions. Then we land on the center: Jesus is the test of truth. What someone believes about Jesus reveals what’s behind the message, and Scripture keeps us anchored when culture keeps shifting. I also unpack common “worldly” scripts that sound comforting but can quietly pull us away from holiness, repentance, and real freedom.

If you want stronger biblical discernment, a clearer sense of God’s voice, and simple daily habits that build spiritual maturity, press play. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more women can find Life Out Loud.

Transcript

Welcome And Summer Fortifying

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Ciao and welcome to Life Out Loud. I am your host, Desiree Melfi Bozzo. We are going to use this space to share experiences and help you find lasting, unshakable, unwavering, unmessable with joy and gratitude. We're going to be throwing around encouragement a little bit like confetti and giving you support to live your very best life.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Ciao friends. Welcome back to the Life Out Loud Podcast. I am, per use, your host, Desiree Melfi Boatso. We use this space to help women through practical teaching uh draw nearer and draw closer to Jesus. And so I want to use the next couple episodes to get us ready for summer. Summer has arrived in the mitten. It is hot, it is kind of gross, and it is a lot humid. But, and we've been praying for this, right? When the air hurt our face, we're like, if only it could be 80 and humid. I never prayed for humidity, whatever. Uh, here we are, though, uh in the thick of it. So I don't know what's gonna happen as we head into summer. I'm probably not gonna be on here as often. So I have a little goal, a couple things I've prepared for the coming weeks uh to push out to you. I want to fortify you as we head into summer, uh, because sometimes it brings its own uh little chaos. And so, in order to do that, um in order to really prepare our hearts, we have to start building um some teachings around them.

Why False Teachings Matter

SPEAKER_01 1:42

And so today I want to talk about a seemingly, maybe it's a seemingly weird subject, uh, the subject of false teachings. But, and I think it's very important, when we dive in and unpack it, you will definitely see why I'm choosing this as one of the ways that we help fortify ourselves uh as summer is well, it's here, uh, but summer break is on the horizon, right? Um, so with that, I want to take us way, way in the back of scripture, New Testament, uh, just before Jude and Revelation to first John um chapter four. I want to read one through six. I'm gonna start us off there, and then we're gonna dive in. Peruge. Hope you're well. Good to see you. Hi, all right, let's go. Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. That was a lot. I know it's fine. We're going to unpack it. The theme here, the overarching theme, is that not every voice that speaks into our life is from God. It's not from the Holy Spirit. As Jesus followers, we're called to discern truth, we're called to recognize deception and stay completely anchored in the spirit of God. Sounds super easy, and yet, right? We all know that it's not as easy as it sounds.

Too Many Voices Compete

SPEAKER_01 3:46

The problem because our world is full of so many voices. Okay. We know social media, influencers, news, opinion, podcasts, other podcasts, right? Even our own emotions can derail us sometimes if we're not careful. It's not about if there are voices captured, vying, trying to capture your time and attention. There are. It's not if there are. They're there. It's which ones are speaking the truth and how do we lock into those? This letter, 1 John, uh, was written to believers because deception was already spreading in the early church. Way back then, deception was already spreading. So there's a couple, um, just a couple points around this that I want to emphasize for us to help fortify this notion of locking into the spirit of truth.

Watch For Fruit And Wolves

SPEAKER_01 4:52

The first one is very obvious. Not every spiritual voice is from God. So, verse one very clearly talks about false prophets. Okay. Just because something sounds spiritual doesn't ever, ever, never, doesn't ever mean that it's true. I want to point to Matthew 7. I'm gonna read 15 and 16. I'm gonna skip some verses, and then I'm gonna read verse 20. If you want to read it all, it's Matthew 7, essentially 15 to 20. So Matthew 7, verse 15, we're gonna pick up, it's talking about true and false prophets. Watch out for false prophets. These are Jesus' words. Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, whoo! They are ferocious wolves. By their fruit, you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? I want to skip down verse 20. Thus, by their fruit, you will recognize them. Look at the fruit in people's lives. You're like, what are you talking about? Well, go back to Galatians 6. I did a whole uh season on it. I think it was season three. Um, I unpacked what fruit is. Galatians six tells us the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Yes, I did an entire podcast on them, and yes, I still had to read them because I don't want to miss one. Uh get curious about people. Get curious about um where you take wise counsel from. Dig into it, okay? That's how we start to unpack if fruit is from God or not. Uh, get um get curious about the the music and the podcasts and the influencers, right? Is a message they're pushing from the Lord. I want to point us to 2 Corinthians 11, verses 13 and 14. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ, verse 14, and no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. My love, Satan is rarely that red horned creature with that tail. Sometimes Satan shows up in our life as everything we ever wanted, or everything we ever thought we could want to hear. Sometimes he shows up just enough, just like he did way back in the Garden to Eve, just enough to just twist the truth just a little bit. Okay. Be careful, stand guard. Sometimes he disguises as everything we've ever wanted. The career climb, the epic vacations, the perfect children, living your plan, etc., etc. etc. I'm not saying any of those things are wrong, but be careful, right? Be careful to the voice you're listening to. Deception often sounds convincing, right? When that little snake slithered up to Eve, he just sounded just convincing enough to derail the entire future of the history of mankind. And uh earlier this morning, uh at uh my ministry meeting, one of the moms said she loved how in her um, I think it was a new American version, talked about uh mankind, and it said the this like the children of Adam. He derailed all of the children of Adam because he was that convincing. Stand guard. Sometimes it's not um the uh the pitchfork, right? The enemy shows up with. It's not this uh ominous, scary thing. Sometimes it's little compromises and just tiny little beliefs that shift, and before we know it, we're down a path we never, ever, ever dreamed of. Being able to discern God's voice is how we win the day. We have to ask ourselves very specific questions, things like, does this align with scripture? Well, the only way we're gonna know if it aligns with scripture is if we read scripture, just so just saying, you gotta know scripture. Does it align with scripture? Does this draw me nearer to Christ than the Holy Spirit, or does it pull me away from him? Is this rooted in the truth of scripture? Is this rooted in human emotion? Is this producing Galatians 6 kind of fruit in my life? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithful, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. We have to start asking ourselves those questions. We have to get off autopilot and start inquiring with those questions. The next uh point about this uh is Jesus is the test of truth.

Jesus Is The Truth Test

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Like he is it. What someone believes about Jesus reveals to us the spirit behind the message. False teachers deny Jesus' divinity and his um humanity, and that he was the Messiah. In the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 14, it is very clear the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. I'm gonna point us back to Colossians two to build on this, verses nine and ten. For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. That's it. The spirit lives in you. First John 4, 4, the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. My loves, I know how loud this world is. It is so loud sometimes. But, and our God is so much greater. In a confused world, dwell close to God, abide in him. John 16, pointing back to uh that gospel. John 16, 13, Jesus' words again. But when he, the spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own, he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. Jesus' own words. We are not alone in this, we're never alone in this. God gives us wisdom and he gives us discernment and he gives us strength and he gives us truth. And this leads me to my uh my last point.

What The World Rewards

SPEAKER_01 12:07

The world listens to what sounds worldly. God's people know his voice. The world naturally gravitates toward messages that affirm worldly desires. Avoid repentance, right? Uh, things like it's not your fault. That your fault you acted that way. It's not your fault that happened to you. Take responsibility, repent, right? Don't avoid repenting from your sin, from your selfishness, from your fill in the blank, right? The world removes conviction. Be happy, you deserve it. Oh, you totally deserve it. Go be happy, go seek happiness, find happiness at all costs. Go be happy. Are you kidding me right now? Not to say don't be joyful, but happiness that's fleeting. Don't go chase happiness. Bad idea. The world centers itself over God. Oh, this one breaks my soul. It says things like, live your truth, uh, be true to you. What? We have to have the belt of truth fastened around our waist. This is what everything we do hinges on. Don't live your truth. It's probably corrupt and far from scripture. Don't do that. That's a bad idea. Don't be true to you. Be true to the one true God, the one that's ever, never changing, the one that is always and will always be to come. And the last one, the world says, prioritize comfort over holiness. What you do, you boo, do not do you boo. Ever, don't ever do you boo. That is a bad idea. Second Timothy 4, 3 through 5. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, oh, here we go, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, you, he's talking to you right now, but you keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. Those are some powerful words in 2 Timothy. This is encouraging. It is saying, but you, because you are different and you are set apart. The world will do that, but you, because you're different and set apart because of this, stay sober-minded, stay watchful, endure the hard things because the hard things are gonna come. As Jesus' followers doesn't give us an excuse that we won't deal with hard things. In some cases, we're gonna deal with hard things worse than other people. That's fine. We'll we're okay because our reward isn't here, it's in heaven, but that's another story for another day. Endure the hard things, evangelize. What does that mean? It doesn't go mean go around preaching at people. Don't do that. You'll just become a jerk, truly. Don't be the person who preaches at people, but you can actively reach people with the good news of the gospel by who you are when you show up in these spaces. You don't have to ever say a word to illuminate the Jesus in your heart. Okay, so evangelizing isn't always using your mouth to tell people when it's necessary, absolutely. But until then, who you show up as, your actions, your serving, your encouragement, your love for people. Remember, God said two things. It wasn't to judge people, it was to love God and to love each other. That's it. That's your job. That's how you evangelize, that's how you show people who Jesus is. Last one, if I can find it in my notes, uh here we are. Uh, fulfill your ministry. Commentary says about this. Devote your finest talents to all the demands of his service. Bring your best self to the amazing gifts he's given you and go for it wholeheartedly. God gave you very specific talents and he also gave you very specific desires of your heart. Go fulfill them. For that point, one of the things uh I miss saying we were talking about evangelizing. So kind of went off on a tangent there. Anyway,

Evangelize By How You Live

SPEAKER_01 16:49

that's fine. Uh, when we talk about evangelizing, it doesn't have to be some crazy grandiose gesture. Okay. It doesn't have to be, it can like literally start with your people, the people who live under the roof of your home. It's your spouses and your children, right? One little way I did this this past week. We have this uh adorable little mama bird. And I think I've talked about her in past podcasts. I love her. Um, she poops all over my porch, but whatever. I wash it off. I love her. She's lovely. And every year she shows me a mother's love by, you know, uh having her little babies hatch on the pillar uh near our house. And it's simple ways that we evangelize. When we walk outside, it's pointing to my son and saying, Look, buddy, the eggs have hatched. Look, there's little birds up there. Look, buddy, she brought him some worms, she brought him some food. You know what scripture says about this? Matthew 6, 26. God cares for the birds. How much more does he care for you? It's just those little seeds that we plant with the people around us in our lives that we know and love. Okay. Our children are um our arrows in our quiver. We're gonna launch them out to the world. Who are we gonna launch them as? Are they gonna have scripture embedded into their souls? I don't know. It's up to us if they do or not, right? So um don't be like the world that gathers the people and the evidence around them that suits their own needs and wants and desires. Fight against this. Scripture says, but you because you're different and you're set apart, but you tells us that we're different. First John 4, 6. People who truly know God become so in tune and so sensitive to his truth. It's the spiritual maturity that helps develop spiritual recognition. When we become spiritual, spiritually mature, we start to recognize things around us, right? John 10, 27, the sheep know the voice of the shepherd. And I know I've talked about this verse before.

Simple Daily Practices For Discernment

SPEAKER_01 19:06

The more time we spend with God, the more time we spend in this book right here, the more time we spend learning it and digging into it and listening to, you know, different dwell or hallow or like whatever your app is that'll read you the Bible. The more time you spend there, discernment becomes easier. Deception starts to feel uncomfortable. Spend time with him, 10 minutes in your car listening to scripture. It can be so easy. I turn it on after I blow dried my hair because I can now hear uh when the blow dryer is going, I can't hear much. After I blow dry my hair, I turn on my little app and it reads me different scriptures for the day. And so from the time I'm jacking my hair up to Jesus to the time I'm putting on my makeup, it's a good 10 minutes. And I got I got filled up a little bit. My my spirit's a little fuller, right? A little more at peace. It's those tiny moments in the day, right? Spend time with him. One verse you memorize every week. Find your thing and go do it little by little. It doesn't have to be hours sitting in a prayer chair. Pray. I who I don't have time for that in this season of my life. There was a season of my life when I had time to wake up at five o'clock and I would spend the first hour with Jesus and it was glorious. I don't have that kind of time anymore. That first hour, I'm waking up, I'm getting my home ready, I'm working out, I'm trying to care for this body. He's getting like whatever, however, my mornings start, I don't have that time. It's shifted now. Now it's a bunch of increments in my day. It's a bunch of 10 minutes in the margins, which I actually kind of like more because sometimes, if I can be honest, when I'd spend that time front-end loaded with God, I'd be peaceful for like the first hour and then I'd be so far into my day and I felt like God would be out here, but now he's like right there every minute because I'm spending time with him more often in little increments, right? So figure out your season, figure out what works for you. I know one day I'll get back to those slow mornings with Jesus. Maybe when my kids graduated from high school or something and he's living his best life in college. I don't know. At some point I'll get back to that, but now is not the season. Now is the season for the little snacks on God, right? My loves, in a loud world, filled with so much confusion at times. God speaks truth, the Holy Spirit, He still guides us, He's still there, guiding us every single moment. And my loved Jesus. Jesus Christ, the the most perfect human to ever walk the earth, the King of Kings, and the Lord of all lords. He is still the standard.

Three Questions To Check Yourself

SPEAKER_01 22:10

So some questions worthy of our time. Are we filtering culture through scripture or are we filtering scripture through culture? Be careful how you answer that. Do you know God's voice well enough to discern it from the counterfeits? There are counterfeits out there. Do you know what he truly says well enough to discern it? And what voices shape what you think? First John 4, 4 tells us, Greater is he that is in you than he who is in the world. I hope this was encouraging. I hope it um fortified your soul and your life a little bit to help you start to decipher if there are false teachings infiltrating your thoughts, infiltrating your minds, infiltrating your day-to-day life. Stand firm, my love. Stand firm. He is with you and he is there and he cares for you more than you can ever fathom. I promise you that. So come back next time. We're gonna throw more encouragement around like confetti. Be careful if you get too close. It's gonna get all over your sandals and probably your freshly painted toes. And that's cool because it'll just be scripture and Jesus. And I don't know. I love confetti. Whatever. All right, my loves.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

We will see you next time. Cheers.

Closing And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Thank you for joining me, Desiree Melfi Bozo, for this episode of Life Out Loud. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment, tell me what topics you want to talk about, and how you take your coffee. If you enjoyed what you heard, text a friend the link, share it on social media, or if you're interested in becoming a supporter, beep up over to my webpage, lifeoutloud.me, and sponsor a cup of coffee that keeps this podcast fueled. Until next time, sweet listeners.