This week our memory verses are familiar ones: Romans 12:1-2.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
As I studied those verses this morning I learned more about what it means to “approve” God’s will. The word in the Greek, dokimazo, is derived from the word dokimos, the word the Greeks used to reference those who approved money. In Strong’s it says this:
In the ancient world there was no banking system as we know it today, and no paper money. All money was made from metal, heated until liquid, poured into moulds and allowed to cool. When the coins were cooled, it was necessary to smooth off the uneven edges. The coins were comparatively soft and of course many people shaved them closely. In one century, more than eighty laws were passed in Athens, to stop the practice of shaving down the coins then in circulation. But some money changers were men of integrity, who would accept no counterfeit money. They were men of honour who put only genuine full weighted money into circulation. Such men were called “dokimos” or “approved”.
In essence, these ancient world dokimos men were the first Secret Service. They were the ones who sniffed out counterfeits. 
So, whenever you are faced with choices about what is God’s will or what is from God, including whether you are hearing God’s voice, it strikes me that Romans 12:1-2 is a well stated strategy to “testing” or “approving” such things. In fact, as I studied the verse, I felt like God was showing me an answer for those who would be concerned that such teachings may cause people to deceive themselves or to be led astray by fakery. And, yes, there is a very real Enemy who wants to deceive us and trick us into believing that his plan is God’s, so the fear is easily developed. There also are our very deceitful hearts. Jeremiah 17. But, God is our Abba, our Daddy, and we are His children. He tells us if we lack wisdom that we can ask Him and He will give it. He is always faithful and always loving, and such perfect love casts out fear.
So, to test and approve the will of God effectively, a leading of our Spirit, a “potential” movement of the Holy Spirit in a church or in others, we must offer ourselves as living sacrifices, an act of faith (and of worship), stop conforming to the world and allow God to renew our fleshy minds. This is by faith turning from all the idols of our flesh and turning to the only One worthy of worship. This is allowing God to tear down the high places in our hearts, even the ones we hide from ourselves. And, just like with the Secret Service, who learn to identify counterfeit bills by knowing real money so well, this requires knowing the Real Thing! If we don’t know God intimately, then we won’t be able to worship Him wholeheartedly, and we won’t be able to know when things are faked. Our love for Him grows out of the fact that He first loved us.
I’m not 100% sure how this all works and don’t claim to have this all figured out, but I do think God can help us discern truth and real acts of faith and spiritual giftings, including hearing His voice in the every day things. He is plenty big enough to do that. In fact, I daresay He desires to communicate with us more than we desire to hear Him. Praise God He is faithful even when we are faithless.
