DISCERNMENT

DISCERNMENT

 

It would seem that one thing that is critical for followers of Jesus to be able to exercise today is "discernment"! Scripture warns us that in these last days there will be "many", not just a few, false prophets and teachers going around with only one purpose in mind. That purpose is to lead people astray from the plan Jesus has for them. Satan's main function in the world is described by Jesus in (John 10:10) "to steal, kill, and destroy"! And since he can't get at God directly, he attempts to destroy us followers of Jesus, because we carry the "incorruptible seed" of God in our renewed spirits. The Holy Spirit inserts that eternal seed in us at the moment we repent of our sinful life style, confess our sins, and receive Jesus as Savior! We are then a threat to Satan's kingdom, and he will do all that he can to keep us from being an effective witness of God's Kingdom of righteousness. His chief weapon against us is deception, and our chief protection against deception is discernment!

 

So what exactly is discernment? Scripture gives a description of natural discernment that comes with maturity in our spiritual growth. (Heb 5:11-14) This sort of discernment comes by exercising the abilities that God gives us from spending time in His Word, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We are born as "spiritual babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food" NLT, but expected to grow up into mature believers. (Eph 4:11-14) We will then not be "tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching". NLT This is one way to prevent being deceived by false teachers, but the other way is to ask God for the gift of the Holy Spirit mentioned by Paul in (1 Cor 12:10). He states "He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit". NLT. This is probably the most important of the nine gifts mentioned in this passage, to have functioning in our churches today! 

 

As I understand it, there are three possible sources of a message we think is from God. 1/ The Holy Spirit of God, 2/ Our human spirit, 3/ A demon spirit from Satan's kingdom of darkness. One family of spirits that our enemy uses against the church is known as "religious" spirits, or demons. They can adapt themselves to any situation, in any culture, including the church in NA! We need to be aware of this fact, and ask God for this gift of discerning of spirits so that we can know where a message is really originating. Demons are invisible, earth-bound, "bodiless spirits",  that appear in the NT to have a strong desire to inhabit a body. They certainly prefer a human body, but will settle for the body of an animal, rather than to remain bodiless. (Mark 5:12). A major part of the earthly ministry of Jesus was casting demons out of people who were carriers of demons, or we can say were "demonized", and not "demon possessed" as some English translations would have us to believe. If this gift of the Spirit was operating in the Body of Christ, I believe we could have been spared from many false doctrines that have plagued the church for centuries! So it would seem to me that if followers of Jesus would "grow up" to full maturity (Eph 4:11-16), and seek the gift of discerning of spirits mentioned above, the Church would become what Jesus planed it to be, and not what it has become. Let us who are followers of Jesus determine in our hearts to do this with the Lord's help!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer