Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.”

1 Corinthians 12:4, 7-11 ESV

I love gifts. They aren’t my top love language, but gifts are still fun. Particularly gifts from God I’ll never pass up! In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul talks about spiritual gifts and his main point is they all come from ONE spirit. We are a body and God knows us well enough to know if He gave us all we needed to be self sufficient, many of us would take our little kingdoms and go play in our rooms where no one can disagree, think differently, stress us out, or play wrong as little children might aptly claim. 

The more I consider it, the crazier it is that he gave us such a vibrant myriad of personalities and strengths and weaknesses and then said pretty much: no one could create unity out of all you guys without a miracle of the love of God. This is how people will know there is a God… you all will get along- regardless of your disagreements and differences. 

For some reason, He really wants us to play together, and then he created us all unique so we collide from totally different everything- personality styles, background, heritage, genetics, experience, understanding… it makes for amazing diversity, and impossible unity. Impossible without Christ that is. I mean he did not say: they will know you are Christians because of your strong opinions. And he didn’t say: they will know you are Christians because you have so many different denominations, classifications, and are good at proving when others are totally wrong. 

In order to help encourage us, he hasn’t allowed any of us to be the full package. Without a community where we connect somehow into the body of Christ on the earth we will be less healthy, less powerful, less complete, and weakened. When we come together regardless of being so different we bring what we have and we share in what others have spiritually. Or at least we are invited to that- often we come together and instead of connecting in love, we choose to fight to control the people who aren’t like us.

This post comes out of a message I recently listening to from Danny Silk on the gift of discerning of spirits. I have heard various people talk about this gift, and each of them seemed to have a slightly different take on it. It seems there are some gifts that seem pretty obvious- if you’re speaking in tongues no one understands, or if you can speak a foreign language you never studied that is probably the gift of tongues. If you have dreams that give you insight and help you through a decision or has knowledge you couldn’t otherwise have known to help someone else, that’s probably a gift of prophecy. If you work a miracle you are probably walking in the gift of working miracles. The gift of discerning of spirits (some shorten it I think to its detriment to the gift of discernment) seems less clear. 

Danny talks about knowing what spirit is driving ourselves first. He uses a touch of humor to describe a slightly exaggerated scene recalling people in church who think the gift of discernment is about people discerning the bad thing about you and then they make sure to tell as many people who may not be quite so discerning so they can stay away from or disconnect from you. Though this might be an extreme case, it seems there is confusion out there on what it is to discern between spirits. This may not be the only application, but I think it’s a valuable one to start with.

To illustrate what he believes is meant by this, Danny looks at two instances when Jesus’ followers are accused of not knowing the spirit they are of. One was when the sons of thunder (James and John) were offended by a town that didn’t welcome Jesus and they were convinced the best response was to call down fire from heaven to destroy the town. They are sure that once they blow up the city who didn’t welcome Jesus – THEN the world will know the love of God! Jesus turns to them whoah whoah… no… the fact that you could think that is an option in response to this shows me: YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT SPIRIT YOU ARE OF. 

Then there is the time Peter hears Jesus preparing them to know he is about to be turned over to the authorities, tortured and killed and Peter in fear says “No, never, you aren’t going to DIE!” And Jesus rebukes him strongly… get behind me SATAN you are only thinking of the things of this world not of the things of the kingdom.

These illustrations and the teaching brought a new simple clarity for me. As with most of the gifts, I think the Holy Sprit often reveals the gift as a little seedling and we get to begin to practice and grow them in our own lives and hearts. In this way we don’t start out wielding our superpowers onto others before we have some understanding of how the power can bring both life and death. Danny suggests practicing the gift of discerning of spirits by looking in our own hearts and sorting out what spirit are we functioning out of.

Anytime we are driven by FEAR we are operating in the spirit of this world. Anytime we are driven by LOVE we are operating in the spirit of God. 

Fear looks like offense, anxiety, self-protection, pride, jealousy, self-rightousness, punishment. These always lead to disconnection. When these responses well up in us we can know there is a spirit of this world operating in our hearts. 

Love looks like patience, compassion, kindness, serving, honor, humility, submission, and these always have the goal of connection in our own heart. If we mostly desire connection and have softness even when wrong is done to us then we can know we are operating in the spirit of love, the spirit of God.

In truth this is not so simple at first. When we see something so clearly wrong in how someone else acts or thinks and we are offended, and look for justification to dishonor or disconnect from the wrong person. We can even find Bible verses to back up our decision. Pharisees were amazing at this. And yet it is the truth that sets us free. It’s not the truth about that wrong person that sets us free… and in 99% of the cases we aren’t setting anyone else free by pointing out how wrong they are either.

The truth that sets us free is the ability to see our own reaction to the wrong done to us- am I offended? Am I afraid of losing something? Am I anxious about this? Do I feel self-justified? Is there pride in this reaction? Is my heart getting harder as I think about it? Am I heading toward disconnection or connection?

“Do I even know what is going on in my own heart as I react with other people?” Danny asks. “Or is my discernment working in a way that justifies turning my love off. Discernment is not a way for me to tell what is wrong with you- it is given so that I might know what spirit is motivating ME right now. Is it love or is it fear?”

Discernment is not a way for me to tell what is wrong with you- it is given so that I might know what spirit is motivating ME right now. Is it love or is it fear?

Apparently if the people closest to Jesus could be functioning from the spirit of this world while they are with Jesus, we cannot imagine we are immune in our own lives. If we could sort out more regularly what spirit we are operating from, we could begin to walk in love more and more and honor the people around us that don’t look like us. The spirit of love is always desiring connection. We would find more unity in our diversity and bring the strengths and gifts of the body together instead of constantly blowing it apart.

Jesus never said we had to come to agreement. Not once. He prayed we could be ONE; of one spirit. Considering we all are guilty in a day of being motivated by fear, anxiety or pride we would be completely hypocritical to judge and disconnect from someone else from acting out of those same things. 

Where we find division and strife among us we are acting like mere humans? Who will be called the sons and daughters of God? Those who sow and cultivate peace, wholeness, connection, understanding and forgiveness.

The clarity of thinking this way has really upped my ability to identify when I am not in alignment with heaven. This truth sets me free to repent and ask the Holy Spirit to bring me to see the situation from the eyes and perspective of Jesus and then make good decisions on how to proceed. Sometimes we do have to instill healthy boundaries. Sometimes we do need to re-evaluate a relationship. Sometimes we need to say things that are difficult. The crux is always that when we do it from the spirit of this world we will always create damage and disconnection because we are operating in the kingdom of darkness. What is hard about this is the actions can look the same on the outside, and it is up to us to be honest about our own motivation- and in that strand to be more honest that we cannot know the motivation of someone else, that is their job. If we haven’t forgiven someone already, if we don’t love them and desire reconciliation above all, we will damage ourselves and them when we have the hard conversations. I don’t think we are called to deal in truth bombs any more than we are called to burn down a city we think doesn’t welcome Jesus.

The beauty of the gift of discernment in our own lives can be that we now can ask for help in handling relationships and situations that challenge us. In doing so we can bring peace and healing instead of punishment and destruction.

Once we start to get a good handle on that I think we are able to look out and use the gift how it is meant to be used. I have had some tough situations come at me this year relationally. Having some practice in understanding the motivations and spirits behind things in some cases I could see that the person was acting out of great fear or anxiety and instead of standing in righteousness that I was wronged, Jesus helped show me how afraid the people were to react the way they did. I still had the situation to sort out in front of me but I had less judgement and pride and more compassion and was able to think instead of how can I help them? How can I have some compassion and operate from the spirit of love toward them even though what they did or said was not good. How could we find a way to reconnect and find something better than punishment or judgement?

I can’t hit the publish key without adding a last layer to this. Sometimes we need to look into our own hearts with the spirit of love as well. Sometimes we are disappointed in our own selves and how we’ve reacted or failed and we punish and disconnect from the very person God loves and is working in. I have also found that when we are so hard on ourselves, it leaves for little compassion for those around us. We have to approach relationships with others with as whole of a heart as possible, and sometimes starting by putting down the hammer in our own hands that we use on ourselves. Forgive ourselves for our failures to communicate or love perfectly and then look at the other person and ask how can I honor them and offer reconnection.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. I still find myself not realizing that I’ve been sucked into wanting to control… or planning to protect myself out of fear… beating myself up for failing yet again to walk perfect in love… and then of course pride is always waiting at the door for a crack. But I am growing! And I am sure you are too.