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the 'guessing' game

Have you ever had to guess how someone feels? It's one of those things that I do not delight in and a territory I rarely venture. If something is of significance to me, I would ask to find out instead of trying my hand at guessing. Of course, amidst the multitudes of christian terms, the word "discern" comes close to what guessing is but it is not guessing.

We Christians are so capable of using a christian terms to 'justify' our words and opinions by saying that we 'discern' something. Sometimes, it's hard to distinguish between what is an 'educated guess' vs 'discerning'. It depends on the integrity of the person operating in the gift. Yet, in all of this, it is never foolproof. No matter how good, how spiritual one person is, he/she is still capable of making mistakes if he/she does not check himself/herself regularly.

Why does God give us the ability to discern, word of wisdom and word of knowledge? To build up the church, to edify the body of Christ I suppose. The gift is on some and not on others because the gifts are distributed as the Holy Spirit wills.

Hebrew 5:14 says this "But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil." The operation of discernment is not plucked from the air by just sensing or having a sixth sense. It has got to do with us knowing and applying the word of God in our lives.

+ The word practice means habit in the greek and it is a habit, a power acquired by custom, practice and use.
+ The word 'senses' means faculty of the mind for perceiving, understanding, judging.
+ The word 'discern' means to distinguish, to discern and judging

Hence, the basis of discernment is the result of us, practicing, training our minds with the word of God and by applying it habitually to our lives so that we will be able to perceive, understand, judge what is good and what is evil.

Yet, having the ability to discern does not come to an end. It's how the information is managed that is of equal importance as well. That would require wisdom from God. Hence, the ability to discern can work for us or against us depending on how we treat the information.

May the Lord, grant me wisdom as well as I train myself to discern what is good and what is evil.

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