True Discernment

You cannot have true discernment without the fear of the Lord. If the fear of the Lord doesn’t exist in your life, you are left with familiarity. Familiarity will cause you to mistake spiritual information that can come from anywhere as true revelation because it can no longer see the awe, majesty, and greatness of Jesus, instead, it relegates Him to a name only. Familiarity breeds complacency and complacency can’t see the truth, even when it is being hit over the head with it. Truth is a person, that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit’s primary job is to reveal Jesus and the Father. If you are operating by a gift of the Holy Spirit, then your life is to be surrendered to the Lordship of Christ, revealing Him to the world around you.

Discernment is not just the ability to make a righteous judgement, it is also the Holy Spirit given gift to divide between things, to recognize their source. Without the fear of the Lord present, a gift of discernment becomes a gift of suspicion, and our ability to divide things according to Spirit is diminished because we are being ruled by our soul and not fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit.

Yes, the body of Christ needs to have greater discernment, but it must be a discernment given by the Holy Spirit (rooted in the fear of the Lord), not just human discernment that comes from the soul.

Before we speak, we must hold ourselves personally accountable in making sure that our mouths and whole beings are submitted to righteousness and the Holy Spirit. We must ask ourselves, “Have we placed all of our being under the lordship of Jesus Christ?” Then we must present what we have discerned to the Holy Spirit and ask Him questions about what we are discerning. This is called prophetic responsibility. For example:

Holy Spirit, what should I do with this insight you have given me? Should I pray this or are you instructing me to say this?

More often than not, the Holy Spirit will invite you to intercede about what is being revealed to you through the gift of discernment. If enemy strategies are being revealed, ask the Lord for a Kingdom strategy to overtake it; get His heart and thoughts about what you have discerned.

Most things discerned aren’t meant for public consumption; Be extremely clear that the Lord has instructed you to release what you are discerning if you do so.

We cannot afford to treat the Holy Spirit casually or with familiarity. Always keep in mind that we as sons and daughters of God are held into account for the revelation and information the Holy Spirit has given us. We must be diligent to ask the Holy Spirit questions and wait for his directives before we take action. This is how mature sons and daughters are to operate in the Kingdom of God.