Discernment
Discerning of spirits
1 Cor. 12:10; John 2:23-25
In our series on spiritual gifts, we now move to the spiritual gift of discernment / discerning of spirits. This is a vitally important gift for the Body to have operating, and yet also a much underutilised gift in most Christian churches. It is useful for counselling ministries, worship leading, inner healing and deliverance ministry, and is indispensable for Church leadership.
We see the gift operating in one particular form in the life of Jesus when John reports: “He had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.” (Jn 2:25) He had the ability to see what was happening in the spiritual realm, either in a person’s life, in a group or in a given activity.
The English phrase “discernment of spirits” or “distinguishing between spirits” translates the Greek phrase “diakriseis pneumatikon” which is essentially about “piercing through what is outward to the inner reality”. It’s like what we mean in English when we say “I saw right through him.”
The gift of discernment is a “diagnostic gift”, which the Holy Spirit gives to the Church to enable us to minister appropriately in given situations. And today I’d like to briefly take us through four different applications of the gift which we see in Scripture and which will help us to both understand and hopefully apply the gift of discernment.
- Discernment of human spirits
- Discernment of the Holy Spirit
- Discernment of demonic spirits
- Discernment of angelic spirits
Discernment of human spirits
Let me explain what I mean by that by taking you to John 1:41 where Jesus looks at Simon and says to him: “You shall be called Peter, that is “Rock”. Jesus looked beyond the fisherman exterior of Simon and he saw inside him the strength of spirit on which he could build His church.
Similarly a few verses later in v.47, Jesus looks at Nathaniel and says: “Behold a true Israelite in whom is no deceit.” Jesus had never met Nathaniel before, but He sees within him and knows his character.
And even in John 8:40 Jesus says to a group of people, “You seek to kill me because My Word has no place in you.”
Indeed, Jesus could see what was in a person’s heart. And so it makes sense that this ability which Jesus had will be passed on to His Body the Church by His Holy Spirit. Hebrews 4:13 says: “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” The gift of discernment is when Jesus gives us the ability to see with His eyes.
Now when we talk about the discerning of human spirits we are talking about the attitudes, motives, and emotional states of people. So the Lord may reveal to you that someone has:
§ an anxious spirit
§ a heavy spirit
§ a weak spirit
§ a grieving spirit
§ a proud or religious spirit
§ a bitter spirit
§ a manipulative spirit
You may see no sign of this outwardly, but you just know it. You pick it up. And usually people with this gift cannot understand that others don’t realise what they realise. They have an uncanny ability to know what’s going on inside other people. That is the gift of discernment. And it is useful as a “diagnostic gift” which helps us to know how best to help the members of the Body. Without the gift of discernment we will take much longer to figure out how to minister appropriately to particular people.
God uses this gift to enable a person to minister encouragement or comfort, or healing or correction to another believer. If you have the gift, don’t hide it away … use it. Maybe in ministry we are about to pray for someone with a headache, but the Holy Spirit gives a gift of discernment that this headache is a result of a bitter and unforgiving spirit. We can then encourage forgiveness before we pray for healing. Maybe there is someone present who feels that no-one understands them or cares, when suddenly the Lord reveals through the gift of discernment that they have an anxious and depressed spirit … just revealing that to them shows them that the Lord knows their situation and will open them up to ministry of encouragement. Perhaps someone is struggling to launch out into something new when the Lord reveals to another person a spirit of fear and they can pray for this person to overcome it. So, you see, it is a very helpful gift which helps the Body to lead into the appropriate form of ministry.
Discernment of the Holy Spirit
We don’t know what it was like for Jesus, but in Matthew 3:16 we are told that Jesus “saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove and lighting on Him.” He saw the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Then there is the occasion that Jesus was in the synagogue and we are told that the power of God was present to heal.
Jesus, we are told in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 was “led by the Spirit.” So Jesus had this divine ability to sense and to follow the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Now that is not surprising because after all we know that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus and they are both persons of the Trinity. You’d expect Jesus to be able to discern the presence of the Spirit.
But the gift of discerning the presence and work of the Holy Spirit passed on to the Church. Look at Acts 2 when the disciples saw flames of fire on each others’ heads. Look at Acts 6 when they were wanting to appoint deacons to wait on tables they looked for people who were “full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom” – how did they know they were full of the Holy Spirit? They discerned His presence.
In today’s experience of the gift we might meet someone and instantly know that they are a follower of Jesus – we discern the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. Or we may be in worship and the hair on our arms begins to rise, or we start to feel a heaviness weighing on us – we are sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit. That is an aspect of the gift of discernment. It is very helpful for those leading worship and also for the person leading the ministry portion of a service to be able to sense a special move of the Spirit. He is always with us and within us, but when the power of His presence increases we have to discern that something special He wants to do in the service.
Discerning of demonic spirits
This aspect of discernment we see in Jesus’ ministry in situations like Mark 9:25 where a boy’s deafness and dumbness was caused by an evil spirit and not by a physical cause. He even saw the presence of satan behind Peter’s seemingly loyal statement and declared: “Get behind me satan.” Jesus always knew when evil spirits were at work.
In the early Church we see this too. Look at a seemingly positive event like a slave-girl following Paul around in Acts 16. She followed Paul and Silas around shouting out: “These men are servants of the Most High God who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” But in v.18 it says that Paul became greatly annoyed and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” He looked beyond the outer façade of someone declaring a truth and he saw a demonic spirit who was just trying to disturb and disrupt.
Discernment of demonic spirits is very important in today’s Church too; especially when we begin to see the Holy Spirit move in power. The devil will try his best to distract us from the true move of God by causing his own show of power and we need to be very discerning. As we mentioned last week with prophecy, we need the discernment to test the source of a prophecy.
The feeling associated with this gift will vary from person to person, but for most it might just be a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, a sense of darkness over a person, a feeling that the Spirit is disturbed within you, or even just a sense of knowing. This gift is the early warning system of the Church and of believers individually.
Discernment of angelic spirits
Hebrews 1:14 makes it clear that angels are ministering spirits. They are invisible spirit beings. Let’s just be clear that Scripture says we are not to worship angels, to consult angels or to desire angels to guide us. That is God’s place and only He may fill it in our lives. Angels are only there to carry out God’s will.
In 2 Kings 6:16-17 we see this gift operating in Elijah’s life when he sees an army of horses and chariots of fire surrounding him to protect him from the soldiers of Aram.
This aspect of the gift is really only given for our encouragement and comfort – to know that the Lord’s warriors are with us. And we could expect at times to discern the presence of angels when we are worshipping. Hebrews 12:22 says that in coming to God’s Kingdom we have come to “thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn …” I have personally discerned the presence of angels in worship on numerous occasions here at St. Luke’s when I hear the sound of instruments that are not being played or even voices singing which are not present. This is just a great encouragement.
Conclusion
Now today has just been an overview of the gift, but maybe you have identified yourself in it. Maybe you can sense that you have this gift and have never really fully understood it. Why not begin to seek to understand it better? Why not come along on Tuesday at 6:30pm or Thursday at 10am for some deeper teaching on the practical use of the gift.
