Spiritual Discernment

And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in full knowledge and all discernment, Philippians 1:9

Spiritual discernment is a necessity in serving the Lord, without which one can easily be fooled by the tricks and traits of the enemy resulting in unnecessary pains and losses. One often is rendered useless for lack of spiritual discernment. I need such a strong and sensitive spiritual discernment in my service. I confess I have wasted so much time and energy just because of my deficiency in spiritual discernment. As a serving one of the Lord, my love must abound in full knowledge and all discernment. 

An elder brother who I deem so highly for his sharp and sensitive spiritual discernment has fellowship this matter of spiritual discernment and it was such an eye opening to me. As he fellowshipped I was so convicted of my lack for spiritual discernment. Many incidents were brought to my memory in which I fell short in proper discernment and wasted my time and energy. I regretted deeply and wished that I could have exercised more wisdom. In may cases, I felt being cheated or played fool by the enemy for lack of spiritual discernment. Thank God for the Lord's timely speaking that awakened me. Some point of the brothers' fellowship are:    

We need to have a pool's eyes, meaning broad eyes, to see things clearly. The four living creatures in the Bible are full of eyes. We need such eyes with spiritual perceptions which are keen. In fact, this is a spiritual function. Without which, much of our service will be in the dark, as it was already in the dark. Because our experience and understanding are inadequate, our discernment could be raw, one sided, imbalanced or even outrightly wrong. Such wrong perception is because of wrong experience and wrong concepts. 

We have been fooled by self deception. How to live in full knowledge and all discernment? The yardstick for spiritual discernment is the knowledge of life and experience of life; the books on the same titles are guides for us to understand life. In our church life and service we need to have a keen discernment and understanding. Many things we cannot discern because we are color blind. If we have no discernment the world is just black and white. Spiritually we are affected by color blindness because of ignorance. Discernment must go hand in hand with discipline, to understand different condition.

What then is the panacea for lack of spiritual discernment? The Lord's dealing. The Lord's dealing makes one able to understand the real situation of people; one must go through a sever dealing and learning to be able have the full discernment. Another lesson to learn is, a need for listening to a lot of proper messages, to receive all the ingredients of the Lord's speaking, to be constituted with it, and live by it.  

In Mathew 13, the second kind of soil exactly explains the reason for lack of discernment. There must be a thorough dealing with the hidden rocks within, a thorough consecration. The deeper the root of the seed is, the stronger the plant will become. All hidden rocks in the soil must be dealt with one by one to clear off all obstacles to be able to have a proper spiritual sight and discernment.

This fellowship was very useful particularly to me. As I have been experiencing different situations in which I felt I should have exercised more wisdom before I made certain decisions. Every time a matter was decided I realised that I had been fooled to some extend. I am not too sure either if I were actually fooled or not, though I felt being fooled. But the point is, I need more spiritual wisdom and discernment. And thank the Lord for sending an elderly wise brother to minister on the same subject, especially to me.

Lord, grace me the spiritual wisdom and discernment I need.