How to Acquire Spiritual Discernment - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, November 4th. Is that odd feeling you have, a warning from God or just normal apprehension? Today's podcast helps you develop Godly insight in the conclusion to the series on spiritual discernment. Every single one of us needs a spiritual discernment, that is the Spirit of God so working in our life that we are able to see beneath the surface of things.

We can see things not merely as they seem to be, but as they really and truly are. We can see them from a biblical basis, from God's viewpoint, the way He views situations and circumstances, and yet there's so many people who go through their entire life never thinking about the fact that God, first of all, even has a personal interest in their decisions, and secondly, that as a believer, as a Christian, that a person has within them the potential of being able to call upon, to depend upon, to rely upon an inner sense, that is spiritual sensitivity, that is spiritual discernment to help them make the right decision, to make wise choices, to choose the best, not what's just good in life. And oftentimes, because of that, people make decisions that are very regrettable.

Oftentimes not just a matter of being unfortunate, but extremely painful, very costly, and extremely disappointing. What I want you to understand is there's a way to acquire spiritual discernment in your life for your daily life in every single decision you have to make as you look within yourself and as you look around you, and those important decisions that affect you, your family, your business, your finances, your relationship to the living God. And certainly the first step is to seek spiritual discernment. You say, well, what do you mean by that?

Simply this, that it is not automatic. Once you choose to become a Christian, doesn't mean that all of a sudden you look at the Bible, you understand it, and therefore you have spiritual discernment. That is not true, because many people will go through life, as we said, without that. And so you see, a reason the person does not have spiritual discernment is first of all, they don't even know it's available, and secondly, they don't feel the need.

So number one, you must seek it. Secondly, and a very important part is, you must recognize, listen, your dependence upon the Holy Spirit and be submissive to Him. You must recognize your dependence upon the Holy Spirit and be submissive to Him.

Each and every believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He comes in its salvation when you not trust Christ as our Savior. He seals us as a child of God forever. And then He begins His multiple ministries in our life. He's the one who determines our spiritual gift. He's the one who gives us instruction in the Word of God. He's the one who opens our minds to understand the truth of the Word of God. He's the one who empowers us and energizes us and gives supernatural strength to face the situations and circumstances in life that we have to face.

He is a very vital, important part. Therefore, every single one of us, we're indwelt with the Holy Spirit, we must rely upon Him. We must call upon Him to give us understanding of the Word of God and to give us understanding of what's reality when we are facing decisions in life. And we have His assistance and His guidance and His direction, which is one of the reasons that our Heavenly Father sent Him. He knew we would need Him in our life.

Now, that's one. For example, we said, first of all, we must seek to have the spiritual discernment. And secondly, we have the Holy Spirit to give us guidance and direction and interpret for us. And so we need Him.

Number three is simply this. And that is, if you're going to have spiritual discernment, you must be willing to study the Word of God. Now, one of the reasons a lot of people don't read the Bible is just because it does exactly what it says. Listen, if you're living in sin and you get to read the Bible, you're going to get real uncomfortable. You're in the process of thinking about disobeying God, you're going to go to the Scripture and read the Scripture, you're going to get very uncomfortable.

Why? Because what it does is, this is the awesome, mysterious, unspeakable, indescribable, listen, power of the living Word of God. You read it, and the Holy Spirit takes the truth and pierces to the innermost part of your being and convicts you and reveals to you that what you're thinking is not true. What you're about to do is ungodly. The decision you're about to make is unwise. What you don't realize is that what you're looking at is evil. What you've heard is evil.

What you've heard is untrue. And so therefore, when people don't want to hear the truth, they don't want to know the truth, shut the Bible, close it up, and just decide what you think and what you believe. The Word of God is the basic foundation of all spiritual discernment. And I want you to turn back, if you will, to the 119th Psalm and look, if you will, beginning in verse 97. And certainly David had spiritual discernment.

He didn't always use it, and I will give an illustration of that a little bit later on. But listen to what he says here, which is so absolutely beautiful. In verse 97, 119th Psalm, Oh, how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day, feasting upon the word. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies. He has a discerning spirit. Listen, what makes him wiser? The law of God, the Word of God makes him wiser, because when he reads what God says about his enemies, he knows how to respond to them. He says, for they're ever mine. I have more insight, more understanding than all my teachers.

Look at that. And more insight, why? Because he has more discernment than his teachers. He says, for your testimonies of my meditation. He says, the reason I have more discernment in my teachings is because what am I doing? I'm meditating upon your Word, then I'm feasting upon your Word, sinking it into my heart, applying it to my own life, putting it on the grid of my mind, your testimonies of my meditation. I understand more than the agent, because I have observed, listeners, observed your precepts.

Now, I want you to listen carefully. If you're listening, say, Amen. It's not enough to know principles.

It is not enough to be able to quote Scripture. It is very important, and I'm going to say this again before it's over. It's very important that we observe the consequences of our thoughts and our actions. Listen to what he said. I understand more than the agent, because I have observed your precepts. I have watched and analyzed, and I have examined and I understand what happens when I apply this principle.

What happens when I do not apply? I've observed what happens when I obey, when I do not obey. So David, what was he doing? Meditating upon the Word of God. We did something wrong. You always see in David there's confession and repentance.

Why? Because he observed what happens when he disobeyed the living God. So if you're going to have a spiritual discernment, you've got to seek it, number one. Number two, you must depend upon the Holy Spirit to work it in your life.

And number three, you must study the Word of God. Somebody says, Well, I just don't know the Bible. Well, then friend, get started.

And you know how you get started? You start reading it. Just begin to read the Word of God. Remember, if you say, Lord, I want to understand your Word. You think God's going to shut everything up?

No. God goes to work through the Holy Spirit, living within you, helping you understand the truth of the Word because you desire to be obedient to God. God is certainly going to be on your side, on your team, helping you understand His Word through the Holy Spirit. Then there comes another very important part, and that's this. And that is instruction. If we're going to have spiritual discernment, we must be instructed. Very important, if you recall that that's exactly what David was saying when he says in verse 66, we saw a few moments ago in Psalm 119, teach me good discernment and knowledge.

So the fact that you and I can be instructed means that is something that is progressive, that it is something that takes discipline on our part, it takes time on our part, it takes effort on our part. Listen, anyone who understands what spiritual discernment is certainly should be seeking it, desiring it for your life, because listen, listen to me carefully. It's going to impact every single decision you make, who you marry or do not marry, business you go into it, or the one you avoid, financial decision you're facing, the one that you refuse. In other words, it's going to affect how you raise your children, every single aspect of your life, your morals, your ethics, everything is going to be influenced by your ability and your capacity for spiritual discernment to see things, evaluate them, analyze them from God's viewpoint and from what the Word of God says itself.

Now, this 119th Psalm, 66th verse, what's David saying? Teach me, teach me good discernment. I want to be able to look at things as they are, see them as they are, not just as they simply appear to be. Now, we come to church to praise and worship the living God through His Son, Jesus Christ. That's why we're here. Secondly, we come to fellowship with each other and encourage each other. We also meet together to explain and to invite people to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. We also come for instruction, instruction in righteousness. It is every pastor's responsibility to be a pastor teacher. That's what Paul said to Timothy, pastor teacher. That is, not just go visit people who are sick and carry on administrative affairs, but it is our responsibility to instruct people in the things of God so that when you come to church or when you listen to this message week after week from your home, our purpose and our goal is to present the Scriptures in such a fashion that when you walk away and it's all over, you've been able to hear a principle or principles and have been taught how to apply that principle in your life. And the reason is because that's what builds spiritual discernment. So you think about this. Our goal is to instruct people in the ways of God, abiding by the Word of God, so that every person's grid is full of great spiritual truths and principles so that nobody can fool you, nobody can fake you out, nobody can give you something that's counterfeit.

Listen, nobody can lie to you and you'd be hoodwinked. You get into some decision, some business, some financial marriage, whatever it might be. You salt the mind of God. You know the principles of God.

Your grid's working and something hits your grid and the alarm goes off. And sometimes I think some people who are Christian enough, here's what they do. They say, well, you know what?

I'm going to do it anyway. Here's what they do. They say, Lord, what are you saying? And they shut their ears because they don't want to hear. And you know what happens? You don't listen to God, you're going to get in trouble.

I don't care who you are, how much you know, how long you've known it. Listen, He gives us a spiritual discernment. You want to have a spiritual discernment?

Absolutely necessary that you are willing to be instructed in the ways of God and apply what you hear. It's one thing to hear it. But if you walk away, for example, you take notes and you put them in a drawer somewhere, and then six months later, a year later, you're cleaning out your drawers, you know, all that stuff.

This has been here a year. You know what? You could throw away the one truth that would save you from a great error. You hear a truth that's worth writing down and then you throw it away?

No, you don't throw it away. Very important. Well, one last area that's so very important, that's this, is, seek it? Yes. Depend upon the Holy Spirit? Yes. The Word of God?

Yes. And when we come to this whole idea of, how do I have spiritual discernment? It's not enough to have all of these things and say, well, you know, I've been taught the Word, instructed. But what about, what about the whole issue of practice?

That is, of exercising, of experience. In other words, it's not enough just to listen. But listen to what the writer of Hebrews says in this fifth chapter now. Look at that. We start off with this verse and we've not avoided it.

We've just waited till now. Fifth chapter now, listen to what he said. We'll just go to verse 14. But solid food, that's the principles of Scripture.

The solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. You see, this is why it's so important that you don't go out and forget what you've heard. That's why it's so important to write it down. You know what?

You don't remember everything you've heard. Very important that you and I put to practice. Now, how do you do that? Whatever you hear, whatever the principle is, you ask God, now, Lord, show me, teach me how to apply this to my life. And the Spirit of God, listen, here's what He'll do.

You'll be in a situation, circumstance, not even thinking about it. The Spirit of God will bring that principle, will make you realize that you need some help at this point in making this decision or your relationship to this person. The Holy Spirit brings that principle to your mind. You apply it and you think, thank you, dear Lord. Thank you, dear God, that I remember this.

What made you remember it was the Holy Spirit. And so practice, that is, as He says, being trained is extremely important. If I'm going to make a good decision, I have to learn to make good decisions. How do we learn to make good decisions? We learn to be successful by what? Doing the right things, wrong things. That is, making a good decision, a bad decision. That's how we learn.

So I want to say it again. It's not enough to know the principles. It's not even enough to practice the principle and keep going. You practice the principle and you stop and turn around and observe the consequences. God wants us to practice what we know and listen, to observe the principles.

If I listen and ignore it, then what? Every single one of us needs spiritual discernment. And listen, we need to be so keyed into God that when the alarm goes off, listen, it can be a slight beep.

It doesn't have to be the alarm that goes off in the firehouse, so loud that everybody a block away could hear it. Now let's think about this for a moment. Listen carefully now. When a person has spiritual discernment, now watch this, you know what to look at and what not to look at. And what not to look at.

You know what to eat and what not to eat, or how much. You know what to drink and what not to drink. You'll know where to go and where not to go. You'll know who to fellowship with and who not to fellowship with. You'll know who's preaching the truth and who is not preaching the truth. You will know when someone loves you or whether someone is using you.

And you and I can go down a whole long list of things. When a person has spiritual discernment, we're able to know the difference. And God will guide you and lead you. It's interesting what Paul said in First Thessalonians chapter five. Here's what he said. He said in verse twenty-one, but examine everything carefully.

Look at that. But examine everything carefully. Hold fast to that which is good.

What is he saying? We have to be discerning about everything. What is wise, what is unwise. What is good, what is not good.

What's of the flesh? What is of God. And if you will listen to what he says, God will do something awesome in your life.

Now, there's one last statement I want to make because everything we've said rests on this one simple truth. Spiritual discernment will only work when you are living in obedience to God. You choose to go a wayward way. You choose to live your own life the way you want to live it.

You know what happens? Your spiritual discernment is not going to work. Obedience makes discernment work fantastically. If you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you don't have a discerning spirit. If you've trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you're living in sin, the potential is there, but it's not working for you because you have chosen not to allow it to work. I want to plead with you in Jesus' name. Whatever's going on in your life that is not in keeping with the Word of God, deal with it. Ask God to forgive you. Turn your heart toward him. God, turn my heart towards you.

Draw me to yourself, Lord, and teach me how to live by the Spirit, the discerning Spirit that you have placed within me. And God will absolutely transform your life. Here's what'll happen.

You get up in the morning and you put the discernment belt around your heart, your mind, your will, your emotions. Your days are going to be better. Your decisions are going to be wiser. You're going to be happier.

You're going to be more content. And what you're looking for in life, you're going to find, has been there all the time. Father, how grateful we are that you didn't leave us here to make decisions on our own, to do it our way with human reason, that you've given us the most awesome gift in the Spirit with your Word and the privilege of instruction and the wonderful opportunity of exercising it. It is my prayer that every single person who hears this message will determine in his and her heart to seek a discerning Spirit and to work at it until they can sense maturity building in their life. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to part two of How to Acquire Spiritual Discernment. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.