I woke up today with a desire to seek out spiritual discernment.

This is an area I really want to be strengthened in.

I want to be able to have a heightened awareness of what might be amiss beyond what my naked eye can see.

Actually, as I grow in faith and grow out of fear, I see sharp spiritual discernment as a need.

I strongly desire for my spiritual ‘spidey-senses’ to mature.

My Former Take On Spiritual Discernment?

Confession – When I was younger, I used to have a very limited view of spiritual discernment.

I used to think this term was only relegated to those people with the ability to see dead folks.

I grew up in an environment that was laced with so much fear.

In fact, some of this was cultural. Children were told gruesome, nail-biting stories of ‘duppies’.

These duppies were basically the ghosts of those who passed on, whose spirits were in a state of unrest.

Hearing these stories at an impressionable age can be oh so debilitating.

So I mention all that to say, I did not want spiritual discernment.

I am quite certain I have prayed away this ability as a young one.

God, I would say, understands that this girl here must never ever see the ‘undead’.

It’s as if in my mind, God and I had a contract you know.

What is Spiritual Discernment?

But what is this spiritual discernment thing eh?

Now, let me just make it clear, I am still not asking for an ability to see dead people.

No sir.

No thank you very much!

I have no lofty goals to get visitations as I hear the new-age folks speak of.

Neither am I interested in communication beyond this realm as some kind of unique power.

But

Spiritual Discernment as the Holy Spirit-given and led ability to detect what is going on spiritually in any given situation.

For that, Sign Me Up!

How The Bible Defines Spiritual Discernment

Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:10 ESV lists it as a gift of the Spirit – “…the ability to distinguish between spirits,..”

In NKJV it says “…discerning of spirits”.

This is the a spiritual gift that God grants believers to recognize lying spirits and to recognize erroneous and deceptive doctrine. Read Crosswalk’s take here.

Spiritual Discernment therefore, is the ability to determine the spiritual and moral implications of a matter.

It goes beyond just a God-given ability to detect good and evil spiritual forces.

It goes beyond the fantastic.

The simplicity of it underscores rather than diminishes the need for us all to sharpen this area of our walk.

Why We Need Spiritual Discernment

Spiritual Discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit as the above scripture demonstrates.

We rightfully should desire all His gifts.

Still, this is a gift that every believer needs to hone.

I believe that this one goes beyond desire.

Spiritual discernment, of course, is done through the Word.

When we know and obey God’s Word, our ability to distinguish right actions as opposed to unwise actions will increase.

Obedience is key here. It always applies.

We can’t simply know right from wrong. We need to apply this knowledge and choose rightly.

Our spiritual discernment then will grow as we obey and become better able to recognize the voice of God.

After all, this is our aim.

It is the aim of spiritual discernment – to hear what God says about a matter and not what others say.

This gift will guide us to a knowing of when something is amiss.

The Holy Spirit will give us an awareness of when something feels wrong.

And, with His help, we will learn to respond to this.

How to Develop Spiritual Discernment

By now, having clarified what spiritual discernment is, I hope we can all agree that this is not a gift the Holy Spirit will withhold from any believer.

Thankfully, we can pursue this gift and follow simple but fundamental stops to help us grow.

Through intentional prayer, scripture meditation and fasting, we can achieve this goal.

When we do these things, we partner with the Holy Spirit who will sharpen our spiritual discernment.

He will guide us away from distractions and into deep worship.

He will guide us to the Word and illuminate our understanding.

Things will open up for us and this gift will shift how we operate in this world.

We will traverse life with an advantage if we are reliant upon the Holy Spirit who strengthens us in this area.

The rest of the world can only depend on information gleaned through books and the media.

We will have this super power. A real super power too because it is directly from the Holy Spirit.

I don’t know about you but this excites me.

7 Scriptures on Spiritual Discernment

As is my habit, I have gone to my trusty Youversion bible app to do a word search.

My search yielded a plethora of results that went beyond the actual word.

You see, the app is intuitive enough to still capture the topic even when the word itself isn’t included in the verse.

I have decided therefore to just share a selection for today.

I also think it would be a pretty dope idea to settle on the number 7.

This way, I can choose a verse for each day of the week.

You and I can meditate on the spiritual discernment verse of the day.

Here are my selections:

Sunday – 1 Peter 5:8

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Monday – 1 Kings 3:9

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” See more

Tuesday – Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Wednesday – Philippians 1:9-10

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,

Thursday – Hebrews 5:14

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Friday – Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Saturday – 1 John 4:1

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Stating Our Faith For Spiritual Discernment

Now that we are armed with a week’s worth of verses to pour over, we need to state our faith.

We do this and activate the power of God’s Word by praying bold prayers.

Each verse above is a prayer point.

Pray back God’s Word to Him. Personalize it if you will.

And wait, just you wait for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

I believer we must trust our prayers.

Trust that the Holy Spirit hears us and He will not fail to grant us any good and pleasing thing we ask for according to His will.

God wants to give us good gifts.

And God surely wants to give us discernment.

One More Gem..

I absolutely love using this platform to share with you.

I love that through this blog, we can share this journey. We can do this together.

While writing this post, one particular song kept ringing in my spirit.

How awesome is it that I can share what I believe the Holy Spirit laid in me, with you too?

By now, I hope you see that I am quite the Jesus nerd…quite the Holy Spirit groupie (if that term can ever be used in a good way i.e.)

So, here goes…Enjoy

How About You?

Is this an area you want to grow in too?

Will you join me and pray these out this week?

Do you know other spiritual discernment verses?

Do share with us in the comments.

Until my next post…

Be Blessed!