I’ve been thinking about what it really means to preach.

In many ways, preaching requires surrender.

You prepare.
You study.
You pray.
You stand before people with your own personality, experiences, knowledge, and understanding.

But then you have to be willing to move yourself out of the way enough to say:

“God, if You want to use me, I’m available.”

And that sounds simple until you realize something.

There are a lot of voices competing for our attention.

There is the voice of God.

But there is also the voice of fear.

The voice of pride.

The voice of hurt.

The voice of tradition.

The voice of other people.

The voice of our own desires.

And sometimes there is the voice of what we want God to say because it agrees with what we already believe.

That is why I think one of the most important parts of surrender is discernment.

Jesus said:

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” — John 10:27

I keep coming back to that.

His sheep know His voice.

But how do you recognize the voice of someone you barely know?

You don’t.

Recognition comes through relationship.

I can recognize the voices of people I love without seeing their faces because I’ve spent enough time with them. I know their tone. Their mannerisms. The words they would use—and sometimes the words they would never use.

Maybe our relationship with God works much the same way.

The more time we spend in His Word, the more familiar we become with His character.

The more time we spend praying, the more we learn to listen instead of simply talking.

And the more we know Him, the easier it becomes to recognize when something simply doesn’t sound like Him.

That matters—especially when someone says:

“God told me…”

Those are powerful words.

And I think we should be very careful with them.

Because sometimes we can become so convinced of our own feelings, opinions, traditions, or interpretations that we attach God’s name to something He never said.

Scripture even warns us:

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God…” — 1 John 4:1

In other words, everything spiritual-sounding should not automatically be accepted as coming from God.

A voice can be loud and still be wrong.

A voice can be confident and still be wrong.

A voice can stand behind a pulpit and still be wrong.

A voice can quote Scripture and still misunderstand or misuse it.

And yes—even someone who genuinely loves God can sometimes get it wrong.

That is why the responsibility doesn’t belong only to the person preaching.

It belongs to the person listening too.

We cannot build our entire relationship with God through someone else’s relationship with Him.

Your pastor can teach you.

Your Bible teacher can guide you.

A preacher can encourage you.

Someone else’s testimony can strengthen you.

But eventually, you have to know His voice for yourself.

And I think the person speaking has an equally important responsibility.

Before saying, “God said,” perhaps we should be humble enough to ask:

“Is this God speaking through me—or am I speaking for God?”

There is a difference.

True surrender doesn’t remove accountability.

It increases it.

Because if I am going to tell someone that God said something, I should care deeply about whether He actually did.

Maybe spiritual maturity isn’t just learning to hear God’s voice.

Maybe it is becoming humble enough to question our own.

Maybe discernment isn’t only recognizing when God is speaking.

Maybe it is knowing Him so well that we recognize what doesn’t sound like Him.

So yes, surrender matters.

But so does knowing whose voice you’re surrendering to.

Because there are many voices.

And not every one of them belongs to the Shepherd.

Thinking out loud…

Before we follow a voice simply because someone says, “God told me,” maybe we should know the Shepherd well enough to recognize His voice for ourselves.

Lord, let it be Your voice—not mine.