Spiritual Gifts part 159: The Angelic Conflict is an affair of the heart.

Spiritual Gifts Part 159: The whole Angelic Conflict is ultimately a matter of the heart.

The Doctrine of Spiritual Gifts

Point 3: What is a “Spiritual Gift”?

A spiritual gift is a supernatural ability graciously given by God the Holy Spirit to each believer (without regard to merit) at the moment of salvation …

…so that the Holy Spirit might manifest Himself in effective service for the benefit of the Royal Family, ending up with God the Father being glorified through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Your spiritual gift becomes operational as you grow spiritually.

Discernment from spiritual growth is part of being equipped to function effectively in your spiritual gift.

What is discernment?

Discernment is the skill in separating divine truth from error and half truth.

Discernment is the ability to consistently and successfully identify thoughts, teachings, teachers, situations and people…

… according to whether they are sent from God or from the kingdom of darkness (the sin nature, the world system, or fallen angels).

Discernment
is the skill of distinguishing between what is from God and what isn’t.

There is an order to how the word of God trains us to be discerning, and the first order of business is to let the word of God discern our own souls.

When it comes to human beings, we tend to notice appearances, but the Bible tells us that the Lord looks at the heart.

1SA 16:7b
for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

We know that, by birth and by nature , every human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked; JER 17:9.

The plan of God after salvation is to renovate the hearts of the believers, clearing out the garbage and replacing it with the mind or thinking of Jesus Christ.

Discernment is being able to determine what is coming from the thinking of Christ and what is coming from doctrines of demons.

So discernment is ultimately a soul thing, a thought thing.
 

 And the source of things is ultimately somebody’s soul:
yours, another person’s , an angel’s, God’s, satan’s.

In fact the very first sin was a thought.

ISA 14:13
"But you said in your heart,
'I will ascend to heaven;

EZE 28:15
“You were blameless in your ways
From the day you were created
Until unrighteousness was found in you.”

And one thing about evil doers is this:
they nearly always try to HIDE the innermost thoughts of their heart!

The essence of a person is what he thinks, but we are not privy to a person’s thoughts unless he reveals them to us.

When a person is energized by wicked thoughts, he or she will almost never expose them willingly.