Discernment is not just designed for you to know the difference between spirits because it's called discernment of spirits. It's a way to know what spirit is in a place or what is the spirit the individual is operating with or what is inflicting that person. That is what discernment is.
People confuse logic with discernment or wisdom with discernment. A lot of the church issues are not a discernment. issue, they are a wisdom issue. People are just not in scripture because discernment has a specific use and the specific use is spiritual things. When I come to people and I want to minister to people, discernment alerts me of what God is interested in.
Do you get it? So when I'm not trying to see like the woman I minister today, I just I touched her by passing by her. Immediately I saw her have been operated, cut on a womb when she was 15. I didn't know why she was cut in a womb, but I knew she had surgery when she was 15, exact age. Then now, I know God is interested with this person, because why would I know this when I was not looking for it?
Because discernment is also how God instructs you and directs you. So when people say use discernment, they don't really understand the purpose of discernment. When the Bible says test every spirit to know if it be of God.
But you cannot test a spirit if you don't have discernment. You see, most of the prophets of old and even the Lord Jesus himself, If he was in today's time, they would call him a wizard, a warlock, because those who function by the Spirit of God are strange. The Bible says that we are like the wind.
Those who are born of the Spirit are like the wind. Nobody knows where you're going, knows where you're coming. What you may do may be strange.
How is Jesus, who the same Jesus, who touched people's eyes and told them then see, and their eyes was opened, is the same Jesus reaching to the ground, taking dirt, spitting on it, putting it on a blind? Man's eyes telling him to go and wash his eyes. Why did you need to do that? You can just say see and you'll see. Why did you need to do that?
Why did Elisha need to lay on a child on top of him after praying saying, Lord give him back his spirit. And then you lay on the boy for him to come to life. I thought it would be just enough to say God give him back his spirit.
You see discernment is how God instructs you. So when people want to use discernment, they have already failed. You can't use discernment.
Discernment is the operation of the Holy Spirit inside of you. Nobody knows the thoughts of a man except the Spirit that is within man. This is 1 Corinthians 2, I believe 10. Even so, nobody knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. So discernment is my ability to know the thoughts of God when I look at something. because if you have the mind of Christ if I look at something I am supposed to know what is God's opinion concerning those things because seeing is not the instruction you see people who are in the demonic world can see they don't see from heaven but they can see The woman that had the spirit of divination knew that Paul and Silas had the spirit of God and she knew that they were going to lead them to God.
So she saw correctly, but that wasn't the mind of God. Do you understand? If she knew the mind of God, it would be they have come to deliver you from the spirit that has bound you. But because she did not have the mind of God, she just thought we are on the same team.
Do you get what I'm saying? So discernment removes the human element from you. You begin to see things through the eyes of God.
That's what discernment is. When the Lord Jesus will say, I must do what my father tells me or I must be about my father's business. He's with his disciples and he tells them we have to go and wake Lazarus up our friend is asleep.
They say if he's asleep you wake up. The Bible says he told them plainly he is dead and we have to go and wake him up. up and I have to go and raise him up that's what he said right but watch this what made Jesus wait is because he knew his father's mind he wanted Lazarus to die so that he can prove who Jesus is if Jesus used compassion and wisdom wisdom would have said go before Lazarus died But discernment, because Jesus is the Lord of life, God said let him die and then you bring him back. See, discernment will instruct you because it is God instructing you.
Sometimes God will allow things to die. So that when you are lifted by God, nobody can say your wisdom did it. You can't even give yourself credit. It will be the instruction of God.
Sometimes people try to say things based on human or Christocentric idea. But God is not a Christian, you know that. We are Christians because we are followers of Christ. But God is not a Christian.
God is just God. There is the right way, there is the wrong way, and there is God's way. So the right way is not always God's way.
Isn't that crazy? The right way is not always God's way. Because you see, as a Christian, we are taught we have to do right, which is correct.
But when you become born of the Spirit, you are no longer... You're no longer led by the law, you're led by what? The spirit.
So what may appear weird to people, what may appear strange to people, will actually be to your advantage. You know there's a time I spoke about why men of God get divorced and people with no wisdom they're like ah how can he say God is making people divorce people and whatever they didn't listen to what I said. Why? because they are not listening by the Spirit.
Have you ever noticed when I preach, I say, listen to me by the Spirit of God. I'm actually telling you to listen to me through the Spirit of God, not through your ears. There's a reason for it. When you become... so involved with God you begin to be consumed by God because all you think is God because he has taken over your mind so the things that are humanly or earthly lose their essence think about Zipporah the wife of Moses Moses is gone for 40 days and 40 nights is he thinking about her was God thinking about his wife?
You see, when you start thinking about things like that, it begins to be weird now. God, why are you comfortable with this man? Being up there for 40 days, 40 nights, he can't even bring his wife along.
Do you hear what I'm saying? There's a certain level of your spiritual work with God that if you are not careful to manage the relationships that he gave you first, you may lose them. You may lose them.
Sometimes God will allow you to even fall in love with the wrong person. Because he wants to bring you to a place of discernment. God would allow certain relationships to fail because God wants to bring you to a place of dissonance.
The way of God is just, my ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts. So how can I have your thoughts unless I have the Spirit of God within me? And if I have the Spirit of God within me, then I'm commanded to search His thoughts.
Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. So God wants to bring us to a certain mindset because that's where discernment is. People can grab the same Bible we're reading and they can read it without discernment.
They will live with the law and the letter keleth that the Spirit gives life. So discernment leads you to life, the law leads you to death. Because who can keep the law?
So discernment is such a complex... But yet simple thing. It is simple in its complexity. Because discernment is a matter of spiritual experience. It's not a matter of just prayer.
That's why people who pray still make mistakes. Prayer won't keep you from a mistake. discernment will. But how can you have discernment if you have no spiritual experience? When I was growing in the prophetic, I made a lot of prophetic errors.
Just like prophets in scripture also made prophetic errors. I'll give you one. Isaiah is telling Hezekiah, I believe, is it Hezekiah that was going to die that God added?
Hezekiah. He tells him, get your house in order, you're going to die. And Hezekiah cries to God, God tells Isaiah to go back and tell him that he's going to live and not die and God will add 20 more years, was it 20?
15 more years upon his life. Now here's the strange thing, he says, ask me for a sign so that you know what I'm telling you will come to pass. And then this is what Isaiah said. This is the sign God is giving to you, Isaac. Behold, a virgin will do a child.
That prophecy was fulfilled over 600 years later. That was a prophetic mistake. Because he gave a prophecy that Ezekiel would not preview to see. How will he see that?
So if he was waiting for that sign, he would have died. He never believed God. Behold, a virgin will be with child, but you are not going to see it. So there are prophetic mistakes that you make which is being lost in translation.
A prophet, a genuine prophet is never wrong. They're just lost in interpretation and translation. They may mislabel the time.
But when you mature in the spirit through experience, you begin to know God's timeline. You begin to know God's details. You see many times when people demonize prophecy and say, prophecy, if you prophesy at any time, that is the spirit of divination.
Those are people that don't have the spirit of God. But if they have the spirit of God, they don't have the mind of Christ. Because you see prophets in scripture prophesying at will. they went to elisha and elisha said if it wasn't uh i forget the the name of one of the kings he said if it wasn't for him i would not minister do you go to the prophets of your fathers and they begged him he said all right bring me a minstrel and then i'll tell you god's mind noticing you how to even position himself to hear god you see the difference there so As you grow in your experience of hearing God, discernment is the ears of the Spirit.
So you can be detailed in what God is saying because discernment is the ears of the Spirit, not your eyes. Spiritual eyes is not the eyes of the Spirit because you have to remember, you look with your eyes but you see with your heart. So your heart is where you see, not your eyes.
That is why faith is considered not to be sight, yet faith can see. But faith is usually centered on knowing. Through faith we know that the worlds are framed by the Word of God.
It doesn't say through faith we see. Because the seeing of faith is through the heart. But you see without spiritual experience you will not be able to discern yourself.
Am I seeing in my mind or am I seeing in my heart? Different. Is it something I am feeling or is it something God is saying? All these things are different. They are not the same.
So... Cultivating discernment requires spiritual experience. You cannot cultivate something that is spiritual carnally. I cannot practice my discernment carnally. I have to engage spiritually.
I don't know if you're getting what I'm saying. But there is no end to spiritual choice. There are things in your family that are not okay.
Ask God to reveal to you what is happening. Now you have an opportunity to exercise your discernment. The problem is people want to exercise on people. Yet when you go to people you are not experimenting, you should be knowing what you are doing.
You should be doing these things with yourself before you go to people. You see, the fruits of God being with you should be revealed to you first. Then people who watch you know that God has really ministered to you.
I mean, you guys have known me for years, right? I mean, you know God is with me. You saw me having nothing and you saw God build me.
Yes, and you saw God using me even in your personal lives in many many ways, right? So there's no confusion about God's hand is on him. You see somebody from outside may say they are faking whatever But you my sons all of you, you know this individually God is with Pops, you know that because you have seen it.
You have seen it continually. You've experienced it. You see sometimes people usually say, Ah look is that, what do they call you, Lala?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lala from Black Lightning and they name you and the name, you know, but... They can't understand why you're in the church holding a mic.
Yet you are both successful in your acting, even he's successful in his acting. Lee's successful, you know, Mike is successful in music. Why are these guys still holding mics?
It doesn't compute with them because they don't know what you're seeing. And they don't know what God has done for you. Discernment begins with you.
If you cannot discern your own spirit, you cannot discern people's lives. I can see into people's lives because I have seen mine. I can tell people what God is saying to them because God has spoken to me and I saw the fruits of it. See some people give words to other people and all these things but the true test of a prophet is to see if what he has has benefited him.
If it did not benefit him how can he give you what he doesn't have? That's the thing about discernment. You can't offer what you don't have. That's why you find Christians one day, God told me you are my husband, next week I think I married wrong.
God said you are my prophet, next week I is a wizard. It's because they followed feelings, not discernment. Amen to that, I hope you can sum to that.
Amen. Can discernment be considered as a being? Not technically, because discernment is an ability within your spirit when the Holy Spirit joins himself to you.
See 1 Corinthians 2, 6 says, We speak wisdom to them that are perfect, not the wisdom of this age or the princes of this age that comes to nothing. We speak the wisdom of God even in a mystery. The hidden wisdom of God that was ordained for us and to our glory. beginning right I am I cannot probably messed up the court discernment is not a being discernment is God manifesting through you because discernment is not based on information you have it's based on information God has Solomon had wisdom about everything because it was the mind of God that was in him Does that make sense?
Well, okay. Let's run. My wife is calling.