Great Damage: The Gift of Discernment Used in the Flesh
If you are in Christ by the grace of God through repentance and faith, the Holy Spirit has given you a spiritual gift. Your spiritual gift is a supernatural capacity to serve Christ in this world. Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, 14 are some of the places these gifts are listed and explained. While Christians debate the number of gifts and their availability for today, there is little debate about the existence of, and need for, the gift of discernment in the church. 1 Corinthians 12:10 lists “discerning of spirits” as a spiritual gift. Further, 1 John 4:1 commands us not to trust every ’spirit’ but to ‘test the spirits’ to see if they are from God. Clearly this is a call to use the spiritual gift of discernment.
The key to using our spiritual gifts well is to use them in the power of the Holy Spirit. People with the gift of mercy can become weak and wishy washy in matters of truth unless they let God’s Spirit direct their ‘mercy.’ People with the gift of leadership can become harsh and insensitive to the feelings of others even in trying to accomplish a God-given mission. When a Christian is operating in the flesh (Romans 8:5) and not under the control of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), they can do a lot of damage.
This past week my post about 1Timothy 2:1 and it’s exhortation to be thankful for our leaders came back to the forefront. A post I wrote on January 20th when President Obama was sworn in was picked up by a number of ‘watch dog’ discernment groups and the rest is history. I have been called weak, soft on the truth, a compromiser, politically correct, foolish, and worst of all, apostate (not truly saved). Wow!!!
I have been a pastor for more than 25 years and I have heard some pretty harsh things; but the deepest wounding by far has been at the hands of people using the gift of discernment in the flesh. Most often, these are the folks that separate friends, divide churches and destroy families. It is a very dangerous gift when not under the Spirit’s control. Maybe you have experienced this personally, or worse, have been the one doing it. Here are five ways to know if you or someone you know is using the gift of discernment in their own strength and not the Lord’s.
1) Isolation: The gift of discernment, like all spiritual gifting, needs the balancing confinement of the local church. Sadly these watch dog sites are typically led by people who have gifts of discernment, often frequented by others with gifts of discernment. As they begin to write and comment they get themselves pretty spun up. Not because they don’t have legitimate warnings to give, but because they are operating in isolation. Without gifts of teaching and pastoring and mercy (to name a few), discernment gifts can quickly spiral into a tornado of twisted meaning. The idea that a man who has preached and written and funded and marched for and recruited volunteers for pro life causes for 25 years is soft on abortion because he exhorts people to find a basis for thankfulness in a very disturbing election outcome, is insane and could only be allowed to stand when gifts of discernment are boiling in the flesh and in isolation. Sadly these folks are often so harsh and so foolishly confident in their own distortions that mature Christians leave them isolated rather than face their fleshly wrath. Which leads to number two . . .
2) Anger: “The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). Righteous anger directed against specific sin and toward a solution is needed and productive for the kingdom of Christ. Unrighteous fleshly anger throws accusations without reason and attacks people without cause. It refuses to listen to intent and is not moved by legitimate objection or explanation. This kind of anger is common place where the gift of discernment is used in the flesh! I receive more than 10k pieces of correspondence in various forms every month. I read my fair share of criticism, some of it no doubt deserved. Correction, exhortation, even rebuke, have their place. But when it comes wrapped in harsh, angry words it does not edify, it does not build up, and it does not advance God’s purposes in this world. I am not a stranger to the sin of anger, and I know that when I have failed the Lord and others in that regard, my conscience is soon pricked and I must repent of my wrong method even if my message was right. Speaking the truth in love is a biblical exhortation often lost to those using the gift of discernment in the flesh. There was some legitimate dissent in my post about Obama, but more recently just a lot of people venting harsh words, with inflammatory language and fleshly anger. Anger that is justified on the basis of Obama’s support for the wholesale slaughter of countless unborn innocents. Should we be angry about that, YES WE SHOULD, but does that justify attacking imaginary targets or dismissing the the 1Timothy 2:1 passage as though Paul didn’t have godless rulers in mind. Wasn’t Nero the guy who was burning Christians to light his dinner parties? It’s never right to do wrong to do right! Never! The method used by flesh discerners to get so many believers blowing fleshly anger is of course, fear, which leads to number three.
3) Fear: The gift of discernment used in the flesh promotes fear. “God has not given us a spirit of fear,” (1Timothy 1:7). To fear anything or anyone other than the Lord is not from God. Sixty-three times we are exhorted in scripture, “Fear not!” We don’t have to be afraid about President Obama, we don’t have to be afraid about where this country is going, we don’t have to be afraid about the nation we are leaving to our children. We do have to speak up and be involved and do our best to shine a righteous light on the darkness all around us. But anyone who is playing upon our fears to motivate us to do right things is not advancing the work of Christ in or through us. Beware of fear mongers; they may mean well, they may have legitimate concern, but irrational arguments flourish in an atmosphere of fear. Sadly it is the air that flesh-discerners live and breath. Deuteronomy 6:13, “You shall fear ONLY the Lord you God.” You know your hearing from a flesh discerner, when their words are turning you from faith to fear, which would normally be impossible apart from number four…
4) Distortion: Straw man argumentation is the practice of caricaturing the argument of your opponent and then dismissing the distortion. It would be humorous if it were not so sad to see the way people have taken the Obama post and grossly distorted my words before attacking them. Claiming that I was sold out to political correctness simply because I saw wisdom (rightly or wrongly) in the way Rick Warren prayed at the inauguration. Claiming that I was soft on the universal uniqueness of Jesus because I did not see the problem in using the name of Jesus in many languages as part of Warren’s prayer. Claiming that I was an abortion supporter because I do not believe it is right to speak of Obama in hateful terms or pray a curse upon him. To suggest that I was part of the emerging church because I use the word ‘missional.’ Oohhh pullleeeaaase!!! Words do not belong to factions and infighters. They are to be understood according to common usage. Words mean precisely what is stated in context, nothing more or less. To take what someone said and assume you know what they really meant, or that they know what you know, or that they had all the information you now have when they said what they did . . . All of these things are distortions. Are you listening flesh-discerners? . . . probably not which leads to number five . . .
5) Not listening: I have learned a lot from listening to even the harshest of comments this past week. I learned that there is debate about the term Arab Christians use for Jesus of which I was not aware. I learned that some Christians think that Rick Warren is a heretic??? (Presumably the same ones that have now added me to that list??) I learned that any amount of thankfulness for any thing about our new President is the same as supporting every wrong decision he makes and every evil he promotes. I learned that people who are using the gift of discernment in the flesh will not yield to any point of explanation or clarified intent because they DO NOT LISTEN! They only attack and vilify.
Please don’t cry for me or post a comment in sympathy. 
I learned long ago to bear up under “friendly fire;” you really do get used to it after a while. My heart in this post is for brothers and sisters in Christ today, burdened and blindsided by the damage done when the gift of discernment is used in the flesh and not under the control of God’s Spirit. The first time that happened to me I was floored, literally, crying out to God to understand how people who claim to love the Lord can embrace His truth but reject His grace. If you are experiencing that in your home or in your church my heart goes out to you as I know first hand it causes great damage.
Categorized as: Christian Life, From James, Spiritual Gifts
