I have received emails asking me the difference between the gift of
Discernment and Wisdom and read those who actually do not have the gift of discernment
but trying very hard to conjure it up. So, I have decided to Blog about it and
I am taking part of an answer I sent to a sister in Christ in response to her
email. So, if you are reading this post you know who you are.
Wisdom:
The gift of wisdom gives you insight into God’s purpose and will
and shows you how to resolve the everyday problem for you and for other people.
It goes without saying that you are resolving them according to the Holy Spirit’s
guidance and God’s will. Mind you Solomon squandered it and solved problems
apart from God as he followed after other gods. However, we can have wisdom without
the gift of discernment, because the gift of discernment goes further, but we
cannot have the gift of discernment without wisdom
Discernment:
Consists of what people calls word of knowledge, it also comprises distinguishing
amongst spirits etc. While some people separate them, the Holy Spirit taught me
they are one in the same because what we are doing is seeing through others with
the very eyes of the Holy Spirit. As we grow in the Lord and walk with Him
daily, the gift keeps growing as well. We have insight into the purpose and the
will of God about us and other people. We can see their motives, sometimes even
their thoughts etc. We really have insight on people and things that only God
would know.
What makes this gift hard to live with is that you can have a
friend who is very happy about an assignment for example. He or she is over the
moon thinking that he is going to serve the Lord in some capacity. While he or
she is over the moon with joy, you cannot tell your friend that this is
actually dead works. Yet, you cannot lie and say “well I am happy for you”
Another example is that you are not a leader, yet you can see all the pastor is
doing wrong like being out of God’s will, totally not walking in the Spirit and
the preaching does not have God in it, etc. Yet, you are forced to say nothing
except praying for this pastor, you are to find the strength to keep on going
there until God calls you out.
I knew a Church where the leaders got into a major conflict, yet God
showed me what He was trying to achieve through this conflict in each group and
it did not work because both groups were disobedient and their ego got the best
of them. Even today, I am still in pain for these leaders doing Christianity
with their ego right in the middle of it. Yet, I am supposed to keep it all for
myself. With all my heart, sometimes I
wish I could shut if off just for a little while just to be me.
God gave me my gift of discernment since I was a baby in the faith.
Imagine being in the Church and God seemed to take away everyone, as if they disappeared,
all of the sudden He singled out one of the leaders and point out things this
person would never want anyone in the Church to know. (Believe it or not he is
a nice guy) When He kept insisting on showing me week after week, my question
to Him was “why you keep showing me that?” I did not have intimacy with God,
nor did I know how to converse with the Holy Spirit. He gradually taught me and
He also gave me proof that it was Him by forcing me to go to someone one a Sunday
after service and told this person this is what God told me to pray for you. There
were five other mature Christians there, and we were all in a circle. Everyone
could not believe what they were hearing because they knew the man on a
personal level and they asked me how I knew these things about him. I just replied
like an idiot, “I don’t know, God just told me” and I laughed.
After I was in the wilderness for a few years with the Lord, He was
breaking my stiff neck and changes me on the inside to transform me, one day,
the Holy Spirit told me that He had given me the gift of discernment. What was
strange to me was the fact that He waited so long to confirm that He had given
to me the gift of discernment, yet He told me about my gift of Wisdom when I
was approximately seven years in my walk with Him. I realized what He was doing
all this time was training me to know how to use the gift of discernment and
also testing me to see if I could be trusted with the gift.
I have never researched the gift up until approximately two years
ago. I did it because I wanted to understand something God was not telling me
which was “why me?”
I am not a leader and I am no one. – A
few weeks after I started researching the gift, I could not get any answers at
all and I was a little bit discouraged. Then suddenly, during my quiet time
with Him one morning, the Holy Spirit made clear why, by telling me about my
ministry and made it clear that my gift was mainly for my ministry. Guess what
my ministry is? Working with people He puts in my path, people that have been
in the church for a long time but never made it to truly become Christians. These
people have lots of bible knowledge, they participate in Church services, Bible
study etc. They are nice and very often intelligent and extremely educated people
that we interact with day in day out yet they have never gone one step forward
with God in their heart.
In my ministry I found it is extremely important that I know
whether this person has ever received Salvation through an encounter with God
or this person has had an encounter with God but is plainly disobedient with a stubborn
heart with dull conscience, etc. Both types are difficult to work with, both
type do not want to hear it.
I find that He also blocks people that He does not want me to see. Sometimes
He blocks someone He wants to use in my life, someone like a leader, and then
unblock them once He finished using them. I find it strange that some people are trying
so hard to have the gift, because, when He showed me how I was going to be
hated, misunderstood, misjudged etc because of my ministry, I sobbed like a
baby for hours and asked Him to take it away. But, I got over it, knowing that
it is not about me but about my God and I am not above my Master.
One of the reasons I do not like talking about this gift of mine is
because once people realize what you can do, they stay away from you. When it
comes to leaders, if they do not stay away, they try to minimize it. Some
actually think you are a total idiot for thinking you have the gift. One of the
pastors who treated me that way had no idea that God showed me exactly where he
was at. Because of that, this pastor has been constantly in my prayer for God
to open up his heart and stop practicing Christianity with a “to do list” and
also for him to learn to walk in the Spirit. Sadly, they do not realize the
need to act in a certain way should tell you where you are at with God. It does
not matter how much you love God and you are slowly growing, it simply means
that you are still in the same frame of mind like Adam and Eve when they hid
from God. It also means you have never gone forward just as you are and stand
naked in front of God’s light.
Naked here does not mean without clothes but rather without our
excuses, pretences, ego, pride, sin, double-mindedness, disobedient heart, lack
of commitment, the lies we live and we tell Him, our stiff necks, etc. Yet,
being able to stand naked in front of God and learning to live in the light of
God is a major part of Salvation. God wants to restore us right here, right now
and put us in the same relationship He had with Adam & Eve before the fall.
Contrary to public’s opinion, this relationship is not when we die.
As I mentioned in my book Apprehended & Apprehending when God
teaches us righteous judgment, we will find that we are our first customer, simply
because we cannot judge people with righteous judgement for one single tree in
their eyes if we have not learned to see the forest in our own eyes. In the
same way if we cannot live in oneness with Him, if we cannot learn to live
righteous lives moment by moment then the gift of discernment could become a
curse instead of blessings. I say blessings here because God calls it such. Sometimes,
as you live it out, it could be such a heavy gift that you ask yourself why is
this a blessing?
In fact I asked God the same question when He was pressing me to go
to someone. Since this is a long time friend that I did not want to lose and I
knew my insistence would cause me to lose the friendship. The Holy Spirit
answered me “I want you to go to this person because I do not want to hear
‘I did not know’ I could then turn and say to this person that I sent my
servant to you” – It is funny how I realized that day, knowing that you are
God’s servant is one thing, but having Him called you His servant is another
thing. All of the sudden my question disappeared, I knew I could not dispute it
anymore and I spent hours trying to process the fact that He called me His
servant. I ended up going to my friend,
and yes the friendship is now almost non existent.
The truth is people do not like feeling they are on display about
their shortcomings. I still remember how I hated it. Every time I have to put someone
on display, I am very mindful of that and every single time I see myself how I
used to hate it and how it made me feel. But in equipping me for my ministry,
He gave me boldness to do it with no regard for myself. It always comes down to
“choosing myself or choosing Christ” or “displease men to please Christ” I
would rather people hates me right now than having to face God’s wagging finger
later.
Some of you want to know how I would feel if I was judged in the
same way? Well, my answer to you is that I am going through it day in and day
out with other people. When other people do it, I do not care and I will let
God be the judge between me and them. Most of the time while they judge me,
they have no idea that God shows me the spirit in them. Through my training for
my ministry, God has taught me to keep a sober mind and remain alert, because in
the same way He can show me someone else business, He could also turn around
and do the same to me at any time. My duty is to learn to live in the light of
God as He is in the light. As long as I am in the light as He is in the light,
then I have nothing to worry about. I make sure I am at peace with the fact
that other people can see that I am a true work in progress in Christ. I am certainly
not sinless, nor that I have arrived.
We are perpetual students in the hands of God. It is also for that reason that God made sure
that I mustered the courage though the Holy Spirit and His grace, to appear
before Him just as I was. I no longer need to hide like Adam & Eve did. I
passed that stage with Him. For those of you who are still hiding from God,
when He calls you, if feels like a strong and distasteful medicine. You dread
going and you want to prolong the hiding as much as you can. In my case the
Holy Spirit made it clear that I had to go and go by myself because He could
not do it for me. Once you face God, you find it’s finished. He is your dad
what did you expect?
I also found out, we cannot claim to live righteous lives when we
are still hiding from God. These two definitely cannot be separated. The need
to hide so we are not found out by others simply says that we have not
exercised enough faith to go to God. Once you appear naked in front of God, you
find that you have become the most transparent person and the fear of being
found out is gone. God actually takes the fear away from you. All that is left
to do is to live a righteous life in Him. And no, righteous here does not mean
you do not have sin.
I hope I was able to shed some lights for all your questions. I
know I have gone deeper in answering what is the difference between wisdom and discernment
but there are too many people who are under the impression they can seek the
gift but not the giver. Some have hardly
taken two steps with Him then they want the gift, to be able to discern the
spirits to what end? I don’t know. Could it be that I know but it would be better
to talk about it in another post?
I like Pastor MacArhtur, and he has a good post on the gift of
discernment and wisdom which I found a few months ago by accident. But, this
particular post of his has not exhausted the gift of discernment as I have
learned directly from the Holy Spirit, but it is worth reading.
