A few years ago, I was going through a time in which I was seeing a lot of angels. They would often give me objects or have messages from God, His assignments for me and other things. One day, while sitting in an airport and waiting to board my connecting flight, I saw an angel quite clearly — not with my physical eyes, but I had a very strong awareness of him over my right shoulder. He held out a manila envelope to me and said, “This is your assignment for where you’re going.”
As I went to grab it, it occurred to me that this angel might not be from God. I sensed that something wasn’t quite right. Hesitating, I asked, “Who is Jesus to you?”
He said, “Um,” a few times and then disappeared.
It was really good that it occurred to me to validate the source of this angel! I thought. God hadn’t sent him. He would have given me a counterfeit assignment, which, no doubt, would have negatively affected my trip.
What is discernment?
Relationship and history with God develop our discernment: a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that enables us to tell the difference between His communications and our own thoughts or the voice of the enemy. This is important because His voice, as well as the enemy’s voice, can sound a lot like our own thoughts. I’ve been thinking about Bill a lot lately. Maybe I should pray for him. That is an example of a normal, “everyday” thought that is probably from God but sounds like something we’re just thinking. Why doesn’t the pastor realize how gifted I am? He must not be listening to God. That is an example of a thought that also sounds everyday but could be coming from the enemy. Both are subtle. Both sound “like us.” When God has built up within us a sensitivity to His Holy Spirit, we will be more able to tell when something is amiss with our thoughts, emotions, plans and interactions with others.
Discernment is the seer’s lifeline. Cults and religious factions are sometimes the byproduct of sincere, gifted, faith-filled Christian leaders who believe they’re doing what God has told them to do. We should never stop praying for discernment, because it will keep us from confusing God’s voice with any other voice. It will keep us out of the New Age and witchcraft. The New Age movement is filled with revelatory seers, but they have very little relationship with God, so they can’t understand the source of what they’re seeing. Many of them genuinely desire to follow truth, but they are not able to discern between light from God and what is only pretending to be light.
Once God has developed discernment within us, we can be trusted to see more and more, because now we can recognize what we’re seeing, and He knows we will act wisely.
How does God develop discernment within us?
God’s process of developing our discernment is similar to how a dad would teach his young son to ride a bicycle. The dad attaches the training wheels and then pushes the boy along until his son learns how to balance, steer and avoid obstacles. After a while, the training wheels are removed. The dad again helps guide the bike and then slowly releases it as the boy learns how to ride on his own.
As we are able and ready, God puts the weight of discernment on us. He gives us the opportunity to make bad decisions because He knows we’re now able to not make them. He grows discernment within us and only afterward puts us in situations where we’ll have to use it. In the story I relayed to you about the angel in the airport, I had been interacting with angels, and God had protected me from interacting with anything that wasn’t from Him. Now He was allowing something negative to approach me, because He knew there would be a check in my spirit that asked, Wait a minute — is this God?
When we’re capable of choosing wisely
In Exodus 32, when God told Moses that He was going to destroy the Israelites, He knew how Moses would react; He knew the Israelites were going to live. He had lent Moses His attributes of mercy and love, and He knew that Moses was going to seek His favor on the people’s behalf.
From my experience, God won’t allow us to enter situations that are dangerous for us until we’re capable of choosing wisely. He is just; when He tests us, He wants us to succeed, not to fail. When He made Saul king of Israel, Saul had the capability of being successful. He could have been a great and godly king, but he chose not to be. Knowing the future, God planned on using his failure, but He didn’t make it impossible for Saul to succeed.
Having discernment doesn’t mean that we’re incapable of making poor decisions. Like Saul, we could choose to ignore God’s still, small voice within us, or we could purposefully put ourselves into situations that are over our heads. There is always the possibility for failure because without it, our success wouldn’t have any real meaning.
It’s humbling to realize that we’re capable of failing. After we’ve made a right decision, God will sometimes show us how easily we could have made the wrong decision, and we’re filled with gratitude and thankfulness. In His grace, He kept us from failing.
Discernment will come as a result of relationship with God. Then, as we grow in discernment, we will also grow in our relationship with Him.
The Discernment: The seer’s lifeline by Jim Driscoll, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This was a great and timely article and I pray that we all mature in our faith and gifts to become more discerning. We were at a prophetic meeting tonight and at the very end, a woman who had came up for prayer reversed things and began to prophesy over the pastor–rather dramatically.
It felt wrong to me, even though everything she said was technically “encouraging”–but it was more in the subtlety of the attitude, not the message that gave a check in my spirit.
We were guests and did not know any of the people there, but I watched the pastor’s face and noticed the pastor was gentle and quiet, but did not “receive it” with his body language. It appears that he too felt the “check” in his spirit regarding the source of message even though many others were nodding and saying “amens.”
Your testimony is a good reminder that we have the responsibility to ask the Holy Spirit to confirm a Word before we receive it or act on it, and that not all angels or supernatural messages are from heaven! We are warned that “even the elect can be deceived” but we rarely consider that we will be the ones who are deceived. Thank you for the reminder to always be on guard and listen for the “still small voice” that might prompt us to question the source before proceeding with an assignment!
I enjoy your articles and look forward to the next one. Thanks!
Thanks for clarifying the development process and our capabilities.
Excellent reminder…thanks! I needed that. We join Paul in asking that “God gives us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” as we constantly “take heed how we stand, lest we fall” (Eph1 & ICor10)
I have been realizing that God wants us to make wise decisions, I am constantly battling thoughts in my mind concerning making decisions to move forward because of my mistakes in the past thinking I was hearing God. Can you help me?
Thank you for awesome teaching.
May the Richly bless your Ministry.
Hi…I enjoyed this article a lot because I felt it applied to me. I try to test all the spirits but I admit sometimes I fail. My prayer is that God would give me greater discernment as I know I need it.
Such a good Word of wisdom, especially when so many are hearing, seeing angels these days. Thank God for His Word for teaching us through His servants. One Word I hear every now and than is, satan comes as an angel of light and IF possible he will fool even the very elect..
As most have said here, it is very timely.
This was a great article! The Bible commands us to test the Spirit. That means testing what we “think and feel” is the voice of God. If God commands us to test, then he won’t be offended if we test what we “believe and feel” is Himself. We are coming to a time where we can’t base our beliefs on feelings! If we don’t start to test we could be greatly deceived.
Is it possible for “angelic” visitors to lie about who Jesus is? I know Satan is the father of lies. Would it possible for his dark messengers to bring a mixed message ? Is the belief that satan’s angels are unable to lie about His divinity found in scripture or simply through “discernment” or the wisdom of other prophetic voices? . I believe peace should follow all revelation .. eventually . It is His peace that guards our hearts and minds. Sorry about the length of this.I guess I should just ask you to write a book. lol.
Thank you so much for sharing about discernment and how it is the seers lifeline. This knowledge helps to understand why God teaches and leads me the way He does. Most of my walk has been about learning discernment and trusting God thru it.
Responding to Sandra the scripture is clear we should test the spirits, and see if they come in the name of the Jesus. 1John4:1,2 Dear friends 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. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, every spirit that does not acknowledge that Jesus is not from God. Remember Sandra there are angels of darkness.The enemy always wants to bring confusion and doubt.
Ta
In response to comment #9… I don’t know if Mr. Driscoll will respond directly to this, I hope so, but my training and experience tells me that yes, demonic messengers posing as “angels of light” can bring mixed messages and even say “nice things” about Jesus, but they will never say that He is God come in the flesh (1 Jn 4:1), or acquiesce to Him as their Lord (1 Cor 12:3). I like Mr. Driscoll’s question: “Who is Jesus to you?” because it’s pointed and can’t really be gotten around.
Also if you are unsure about something you can command in Jesus’ name that it reveal its true nature…. but be prepared for an unpleasant shock if it is not a real angel. Recently, I kept “seeing” a beautiful woman holding her hands out to me. I assumed she was an angel and wanted what she brought me, but the last time I felt that same check and more out of curiosity than anything, asked, “Who ARE you?” The woman instantly disappeared and in her place a grotesque monkey was pressed right up against my face, literally trying to smother me. I felt like the life was being sucked out of me and it took a few moments to even be able to verbalize the name of Jesus. Once I did, it all disappeared, and the Lord revealed it was a spirit of the world’s “wisdom” (actually foolishness) which He had been talking to me about that day. If I had used the question posed here I might have avoided some of the enemy’s yuck, but either way, I’m thankful for the Spirit’s warning, and that I didn’t receive what that false messenger was offering.
This is an excellent post on discernment. I will pass this along to the team i work with here.
A word in due season! We never quit learning thru others experiences and our own. I will now remember to test the spirits EVERYTIME !!
Thank you for the message on discernment. I got caught up with deceptive, manipulation & control spirit of a Nigerion Pastor. Thank God for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I totally blamed myself & could not accept that I got caught in this but thanks be to God who knows ALL things I am totally restored & am getting back into my relationship with God & trusting & having Faith in Him. The Good Shepherd.
Such a great article & right on time. Thank you Father! and Bless Mr. Driscoll for sharing!
This is indeed a word in season.Of recent i’ve been learnin to grow in hearin God’s voice n i’ve come to realize that havin a relationship with God is d best way to discern. YOU KNOW THE FAKE BY KNOWIN WHAT THE ORIGINAL IS AND LOOKS LIKE.
there are 2 ways to test what you are seeing and hearing 1. ask the spirit behind the vision/ voice whether Jesus Christ is their LORD and did Jesus come to earth in the flesh . if the answer is no or some mumbo jumble- its not from the Lord. If the Lord, He will answer and if its and angel, they will answer accordingly. test 2- ask God to give you peace if its from Him or no peace if ist not from him..
@Cassandra
I was doing the same thing until my pastor said to me “you need to forgive yourself” referring to the mistakes of the past. Once I did, the Lord was able to continue to confirm His direction. Hope this helps you.
My assignment is to take care of mom 91 with alzhimers.
A great onslaught of no sleep, care problems, anger at my sister
etc etc. forgiveness the key.mercy and compassion as mom has to go to assisted living.
a vision in the middle of this:
A pregnant Arab woman sitting at a vanity dresser looking into the mirror. She is about to vomit and it appears that I am to go to her to keep her outfit clean from the vomit.
thanks alot for the article,brought in depth understanding of discernment and its development.
Thank you Jim, God bless you more.
Thank You for the Godly insight. I had a similar experience. While at a youth concert the director was talking, lights were only on him and it was dark in the audience. While standing I felt the presence of someone close to me, I looked there was no one. I have felt God beside me before and this was not the same feeling. Another time, when I knew it was God, I was happy that I was making the right decision and God has been revealing Himself to me since. I have always wondered why at the concert why the feeling of the other spirit was not kosher, it was discernment. Thanks again. God Bless You with all Spiritual Blessings.
My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!