The Power Of A Discerning Spirit

Oftentimes, when life lacks clarity, we get lost. We can’t distinguish between good and evil, truth and fiction, or an outburst of anger and a cry for help. How do we find our way when things seem so confusing?
What we need is a discerning spirit. Without it, we make unwise choices and miss out on opportunities for blessings. Dr. Stanley explains why we need spiritual discernment and how we can develop it.

In touch with Dr.
Charles Stanley, celebrating 45 years of God’s faithfulness in sharing the gospel worldwide.
Next on, in touch, the power of a discerning spirit.
Isn’t it strange that sometimes we have difficulty determining the difference between good and evil?
And sometimes we find ourselves being deceived by what we hear and what we see.
And sometimes we have a difficulty in discerning whether God is speaking to us or not.
And then oftentimes in our conversations with other people, we don’t get it.
They’re saying to us in their own way, in their own words, their own expressions, I’m hurting.
I need help and we just go right by it.
Well, one of the reasons all of those things are true is because we do not have a discerning spirit somewhere along the way.
Nobody has ever taught us what it means to be discerning.
We just take things as they are, take them at face value and living in the day in which you and I live, you cannot afford to do that.
Neither we who are parents, nor our Children, nor our grandchildren.
In fact, this whole nation as a nation of people, we cannot afford to make decisions without a discerning spirit.
We’re in trouble, big time trouble because we have not made decisions based on wise discernment, but on what appears to be something that will pass for the moment without thinking about the future consequences.
Could that be true of your life That you’ve made a lot of decisions without thinking about the future consequences?
Well, David Prayed a prayer to the father that all of us should pray for ourselves.
And I want you to turn if you will to the 119th psalm and the 66th verse in that psalm, the whole psalm is about the word of God.
And uh it, it does you good once in a while but every few months or so, I just read that whole psalm just for myself because it’s all about God’s word and what it does in our life.
And if you’ll notice in this 19 psalm, it’s the long one down. The 66th verse.
Look at the 65th verse and here’s what he says. You have dealt, you have dealt well with your servant.
Oh Lord, according to your word, teach me good discernment and knowledge for I believe in your commandments, teach me good discernment.
So if you’ll think about it and think about the day in which you and I live and the things that are happening today and the fact that uh we live in a world that’s full of counterfeit lies have truth mix with truth.
We live in a day when you have to ask several times.
Am I hearing the truth or am I not?
Is this really the truth or is this or is this some counterfeit, is something camouflaged about what I see and what I hear a world of deception lies.
And so we live in lots of turmoil because we don’t know what to believe.
You turn on the television and you hear one person say one thing and somebody else comes on next says something absolutely opposite.
So what do you believe? You hear all about finances today and you hear about something else tomorrow and, and it’s totally different.
So we live in a, we live in an age of being overwhelmed with information, but not necessarily the truth.
And if you operate simply on the basis of information without truth, you’re going to get in trouble sooner or later.
So what I want to talk about in this message is simply this and that is the power of a discerning spirit.
It is the will of God that all of his Children have a spiritually discerning spirit.
That is when you think about what discernment is. This sermon is all about making judgments.
It’s about right judgment. It’s about looking beneath the surface of things to see what’s really there.
It’s being able to hear what the person says and also hearing what they don’t say, it’s investigating something and not taking it for granted.
It’s evaluating, it’s distinguishing. It’s, it’s looking deep down inside to find out what is the truth.
And God intends that every single one of his Children have a discerning spirit.
So, what I’d like for us to do is I’d like to think about in this light.
And that is, first of all, what’s the real need for discernment? We talk about lots of information.
Well, think about it from this perspective.
If you’re gonna live in the will of God, you’ve got to have a discerning spirit because discernment says I’m able to understand truthfully and in reality, what God is saying to me, he has a will and a purpose and a plan for every single one of us.
And so the issue is, do you know what the plan is?
Do you understand God’s purpose and plan for your life? So how would I find that out?
He’s willing to tell you he’s willing to show you he’s willing to make it crystal clear for the simple reason.
He is the one who designed the plan, he knows exactly what’s best.
And so if you can’t discern when God is speaking and when it’s just yourself or what you choose, how you ever gonna know that you’re in the will of God or doing the will of God, it’s extremely important.
We learn to judge rightly. And secondly, it’s essential to distinguishing truth from error.
And we’re gonna get to how in a few moments.
But if you can’t distinguish truth from error, you’re gonna make decisions that are gonna be costly.
They can be financially costly decisions, relation costly, whatever it might be.
And when you think about what’s happening in children’s schools, when they, when they go to elementary school and all the things that they hear about evolution and, and ignore the very idea of God.
And now, for example, we have the whole issue. Let’s don’t talk about Jesus. What do you expect?
How do we expect them to grow up having a discerning spirit unless somebody teaches them?
And the truth is it’s the parents’ responsibility.
How do I teach my Children to be discerning to be discerning yourself? Suppose?
I don’t know how, then you’re in trouble, your kids are in trouble and the truth is, it’s the will of God that his Children follow his will, which means I must be able to learn to listen to him what he’s saying and to be able to discern what is truth and what is error that a lot of folks will mix truth with error and there are sex and cults and so forth.
That’s what they do. They put enough truth out there to mix it with error.
So if you only hear what sounds good and what you’ve probably been taught and you don’t get this part over here, then you got confusion.
So it’s very important. We have a discerning spirit to be able to judge rightly to know the truth.
Also, I think that in this light and that is, it’s essential for us to be able to overcome and to avoid being deceived by San sin is a very, very convincing persuading thing.
And uh many things that are pleasurable in life that are the will of God.
There are many things that appear to be pleasurable in life but only pleasurable for the moment.
And one of the things that this sermon helps us to do is ask this question, what are the consequences of this action?
When the world talks about pleasure, it only talks about pleasure for the moment or promises of the future that it cannot really fulfill.
And so a discerning person asked the question, what is the, what, what are the consequences of this action?
What are the consequences of this purchase? In other words, what, what, what, what follows after this?
A discerning spirit doesn’t just stop with what they see and what they hear or what they feel at the moment.
It is a dangerous thing to live today with no discerning spirit.
And it is a spirit that God offers his Children.
It’s a, it, it’s essential to distinguish in between what’s good and what’s best.
Now, a lot of folks say, well, you know, as long as I just sort of get along, I’m fine.
That’s not, that’s not in the word of God because you now followers of Jesus Christ.
And because he lives on the inside of us and because we have the Holy Spirit in us, listen, he, he expects us to do our best and to be our best at whatever we do, not better than somebody else necessarily, but to be our best.
And here’s what happens if I, if I sort of, if I sort of like good, I’ll never strive for the best.
What we have to ask is Lord, is this as far as you want me to go or do you have something else out here that I’m not even aware of?
And when a person has a discerning spirit, they don’t make quick judgments.
When unnecessary, sometimes you have to make a fast judgment. If you have a discerning spirit, you are protected.
But the truth is, unless a person has a discerning spirit, it’s like going to battle with no shield and no weapon, you’re wide open for defeat because we’re being confronted continuously with decisions.
We have to make that affect all kinds of things in our life that are very important, name and decision that you made just wanna leave him out totally.
You say, well, uh surely there’s some decisions I don’t have to ask out about.
Well, some decisions which you don’t have to ask out about, you’ve already asked him about.
And you know, now when some things are crystal clear, right wrong and yet there are many things that in people’s minds are in the gray area, but in God’s mind, it’s not gray.
You say, well, is everything so black and white, not necessarily, that’s why we have to have a discerning spirit to know Lord, what is your will in this particular situation?
What would you have me to do? And so likewise, it’s essential to distinguish in between legalism. Listen, legalism.
And I want to put this on the board here. Legalism and liberty.
And I wanna, I wanna give you a definition and I hope you’ll write this down because somebody will say to you, well, you’re just legalistic.
They don’t even know what that means. Here’s what legalism is.
It’s the pressure of personal preferences that we impose upon other people as moral mandates from God.
And that is really what goes on sometimes, but we’re not being legalistic by having a discerning spirit.
We just want to do the right thing in the right way to please and honor God uh whatever that requires of us.
And so usually when somebody uh insists that you interpret scripture a certain way, you have to ask yourself the question, Lord, what’s the will of the Father?
What are you saying to me?
And what people don’t realize, I think is having the word of God.
We have the foundation and the basis for wise, truly, wise, discernment.
But I think likewise, uh essential, it’s essential to recognizing when God’s speaking to us.
Now, if I ask you, do you know how to listen to God.
What would you say that? You know how to listen to the guy? You say?
Well, I don’t know that God’s speaking. Yes, he is.
Listen, he created you with a plan and a purpose and a will for your life.
It would be unlike God in his very character, not to be willing to speak to you, to give you direction and clear guidance in every aspect of your life.
So he does speak. The question is, do you know how to listen to Him?
Because you see, when you learn to listen to God, you have a discerning spirit and He will enable you to distinguish between what I want, what I feel and what is the will and purpose and plan of God in this situation.
It’s our greatest protection, not only for our Children as they leave home, but for our daily life.
And so when you think about it in your own personal life and when He’s speaking, how would you say that?
You know, when God is speaking to you? Well, I’m gonna come to that in a moment.
He does speak. He does give discernment because it’s His will that you and I make wise decisions.
Therefore, I must be able to look beyond what I see beyond what I feel, beyond what I hear and be able to see what it, how is it that God looks at it now?
What’s the source of real spiritual discernment? Well, the source of real spiritual discernment.
First of all, it’s a gift of God. You so how to be a gift of God.
Here’s the reason Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room the night before he was leaving, he said, I’m gonna send you a helper.
He is the Holy Spirit. He’ll be in you with you and upon you, he will enable you.
He will give you direction. He will bring things to your Ame.
He will, he will help you understand the truth.
That’s the promise that every single one of us who is a believer has we have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us to enable us and direct us to have spiritual discernment.
So we have a helper and so as you think about your life and you come to make a decision, listen, you don’t ever have to make a decision alone as a believer.
You have the spirit of God living within you. That’s God’s in the spirit living within you.
And he says, I’m sending him as your helper. So we have someone to help us.
You help you out in every single aspect of life. We have him.
When you trusted Jesus as your savior, he says, he came to live in your life direction, guidance your personal helper, naturally, he’s gonna help you make wise decisions.
So when you think about it, we, we have the asset number one of the Holy Spirit to enable us to be wise in our judgments.
But the second thing we have is this, we have the word of God.
He says, the entrance of thy word gives light now.
So when it comes to making wise decisions and when it comes to having spiritual discernment, what is the basis of it?
The basis of all discernment is the word of God.
Because every single situation and circumstance you and I are confronted with, there is an answer in the word of God.
He said, oh, I’ve got some, no, you don’t, you don’t have any spiritual moral issues in life for which there’s not an answer in the word of God.
So when somebody says, well, how do I have a discerning spirit? Listen carefully, think about this life.
You come to church week after week after week after week or you listen or you watch And you hear one principle after the other 11 principle after the other.
This is how God works. This is how God thinks.
I’m just simply giving you what God says in his word. So what have you done?
You have filled your mind with what with biblical truths? Let’s just take the 10 commandments.
If you just take the 10 commandments and you say, well, I’m going to run everything by that.
That’s just foundation. You think about all the truth in the word of God, all through Paul’s epistles and how he explained things and so forth.
And so when you when you think about that and you think about uh how God intends for us to work.
Listen to what he says in First Corinthians now back in this second chapter and begin, if you will in verse 10, he says for, to us, God revealed them through the spirit.
For the spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in Him.
Even so the thoughts of God, no one knows except the spirit of God.
So that listen, if a person is an unbeliever, they have no spiritual discernment can’t have it.
No one knows except the spirit of God.
Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God so that we may know the things freely given us of God.
The basis of all true genuine spiritual discernment, the word of God.
He says which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
Now watch this but a natural man. That’s an unbeliever.
A natural man does not accept the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness to him.
And he can’t understand them because they are spiritually discerned. You see that word is a praise.
A Greek word is discerned. He says a lost person cannot understand the things of God because they are spiritually discerned.
You say, well, then how would a lost person ever get saved? Here’s how a lost person gets saved.
They hear the truth and the spirit of God from without takes the truth of God drives into their heart to their heart and their life and convicts them of sin and listen and begins to reveal the truth, the truth of salvation.
And then following that, of course, the Holy Spirit is there to give them direction. But here’s what he says.
He says, the natural man does not accept the things of God because they’re spiritually discerned.
And he says, because their foolishness to him, but he who is spiritual Appraises or discerns all things yet he himself is discerned by no one.
Now, what he’s simply saying is this, that when you and I have the spirit of God living within us, what happens?
We have the discern. He’s the one who he’s the one who enables us to discern and so thereby a person who would judge us, for example.
Uh They can judge there was, we’re not talking about condemning somebody.
We’re talking about discerning, we, we, we’re talking about seeing what is the truth about that person.
And so a lost person doesn’t mean that a lost person has no discernment doesn’t mean that, but they have no spiritual discernment because apart from the spirit of God is not there and they don’t have it.
Well, how do you develop a discerning spirit, you develop a discerning spirit. By what by practice you say?
Well, suppose I fail, we all fail to begin with. We all make mistakes.
But here’s what happens if I want to develop a discerning spirit, I will, first of all, I have to be a Christian.
I’ll ask God to give me direction and I will do what I believe he say is best.
I know at that point it may be exactly the right thing. It may not be.
He said, well, suppose it’s not. How do we learn? We learn by making mistakes.
Well, I thought that’s what God said, but here’s the key.
We go back to what we said in the beginning.
If you have the word of God and we have it in our heart, the spirit of God will do what decision comes.
You wanna be wise in what you do.
He will bring back to our mind and heart, the word of God. So here’s what God says.
Now, if you don’t have the word of God in your heart, this is why I say read it, read it, read it, read it, read it because here’s what happens when you read the word of God, he’s putting it in your heart, the more you read, the more you understand, you read it, you read it, you read it, you read it, what’s happening.
We program our minds and our hearts, our spirit to think the way God thinks you neglect the word of God.
What happens? You neglect the word of God.
You will begin to think the way the world thinks because think about it, think about how much you hear from television or your job or whatever it might be.
You listen to all these things, the bombarded with information, information, information.
And then there’s a little bit of time you spend reading the word of God, which will naturally overpower the other.
If you’re not careful, you let the world’s viewpoint, overpower God’s viewpoint, then you make wrong decisions.
A discerning spirit is the greatest protection you have in a world of information that’s so full of mixture of truth and error.
We all need a discerning spirit. And why do you get it?
Remember, it’s a gift from God through the Holy Spirit who interprets things for us as we need to be.
And then we have the book, we have the teaching and we have experience.
So you say, well, I don’t think I’ve been doing too well. Then here’s where you start. Lord.
Next time I have a decision, I’m gonna come to you ask for direction. And here’s the big issue.
What was the, what, what were the consequences of the last time I made that decision?
And what happens is the spirit of God will show you.
Look, look, look how you’ve suffered from doing that before or look, look, look how I blessed you for waiting upon me and, and, and, and taking my choice, you learn discernment, but you have the basis of the word of God.
That’s the source of all discernment we need. And it is my prayer.
If you have never trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, you think.
Well, how does all this work with me?
Well, it won’t work because he says the natural man receive not the things of God when you trust Jesus as your savior, that’s when the Holy Spirit comes in.
That’s when he enables you. That’s when you begin to see things as they really truly are.
So I ask you this question, why would you wait to receive Jesus Christ, the son of God as your savior, Lord and master?
And he is the only savior. Why would you wait? Could you give me an answer?
That why would you wait when your greatest protection is his presence within you and the power to discern, right?
And why would you wait in a world of confusion and people being mixed up about so many things and not knowing which way to turn and how to make decisions and all the uncertainty that envelops this world of ours.
Why would you wait if you’ll think you shouldn’t wait because it can’t get better waiting.
And I would challenge you to ask the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins and tell him that you need him in your life.
You’re receiving him as your Lord and savior master you want, what’s best for you?
You want what’s best for your family? You’re trusting Jesus Christ as your personal savior. Why would you wait?
Frankly, I’d be a little bit afraid to wait.
God does know how to get our attention, doesn’t he?
Amen?