Discerment

Discernment 

Many people today get leading of feelings, hearing gods voice, dreams, visions and other various ways. But is what you’re getting properly discerned? Because we can get leading off Satan, our own mind or God. The truth is we have to get to know Jesus very well and we will know all good things. It’s like the bankers deal with money all day and for a long time they get to know money very well and they study it carefully and because they have seen the Good money so much that when a fake note comes in they can tell straight away whether its real or not. So if we get to know Jesus very well we will know all things that come from Jesus, but when something of the devil slips in we can easily identify whether it was from God or the devil. So develop a relationship with Jesus and get to know the good things. Only Good fruits can come from God and only bad fruits can come from the devil. 

Testing the spirit 

God gives us the Holy Spirit so we can have a relationship with Jesus. God will talk to us and lead in many ways but how do we know we are hearing God's voice? Because Satan can manipulate God's voice in your head. Here are some ways you can find out who you are really listening too.

1. Test the spirit and ask the spirit, did Jesus come in the flesh? And only the spirit of God can say yes if we don’t hear anything or a no that is from Satan. 1 John 4:1-4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. ⁴ You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

2. Does what the spirit is saying to you glorify God? Man? Or Satan? If it glorifies God then it will be from God. 

3. Then look at the bible and see if what the spirit is saying to you lines up with the bible, but be careful, when Jesus was on top of a mountain Satan came to him and tried to use scripture against him so ask Jesus for interpretation of the scripture so you will not be deceived. 

 4. Does what the spirit say bear good fruit and you are seeing people lead to Jesus? Edified? Encouraged? Leading to repentance? Or helping someone? 

5. If you are still unsure then ask for confirmation, by asking in prayer for 2 or 3 witnesses to be lead by God to tell you what God has told you. 

 How to get to know Good 

 We get to know good by getting to know Jesus. By developing a relationship with Jesus Christ. We develop a relationship with Jesus through praying to God and seeking him. We need to seek the truth we can’t just expect it all to fall on our hands; we seek God through prayer and the bible. So get on your knees everyday and pray to God as much as possible and seek him and he will reveal his voice to you. It says in scripture draw near to God and he will draw near to you. So the closer we get to God the better we can hear his voice. So develop a relationship with God and you will know good fruits, because God is full of good fruits he cannot possibly bear bad fruits. 

So we can see how to distinguish good from evil but what about our own thoughts to Gods voice, well this one can be tricky but there is a way to know your voice from Gods voice. We have to look at the motive of everything; it all must be out of love. Our own minds will only do what we want to do, God will get us to do things we don’t want to do sometimes. Also god will have a certain tone in your head and get to know that tone and don’t try and manipulate Gods voice with your own thoughts because this will confuse you, ask God in prayer to clear your mind so your more open to hearing the voice of God. 

Feelings 

Many people get lead of feelings, but feelings are very hard to discern and it's not a very good way to be lead. To be honest I don’t like being led of feeling because I get lead astray when I let feelings take over so it is only good in very few occasions like when you are prophesying over someone and you get the feeling like the other person does, God can do that so you know how the other person is feeling so you can get to their level and help them out. But overall we have to be very careful with feeling and not let feelings be your motive. 

Dreams and visions 

Dreams and visions I find are a good way of being lead and can be easily discerned. Dreams and visions can lead us to prophecy over someone, heal the sick, do miracles, preach to someone, a prophetic message or warning to the people. With dreams and visions they must be interpreted properly by asking God for wisdom. We must get the correct meaning of it or the devil can use the dream or vision from God to manipulate into serving Satan. So always ask God for the interpretation or ask someone that is strongly led by the Holy Spirit to interpret it, just like Daniel did in the bible. So make sure you get the correct meaning of the dream or vision and discern whether it is from God or not by testing. 

Prophetic message 

When you receive a prophetic message see what the prophet spoke of will come to pass and if it does it’s from God, but if it’s leading from the Holy Spirit and you have been told through a prophet to go and do something then ask God in prayer and see if God says the same thing to you. So overall it’s very important to know who’s leading you, and I hope this helps anyone that struggles, and also discernment is a spiritual gift so ask God for the gift. God bless you all. May the grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.