Understanding Spiritual Gifts: The Gift of Distinguishing Between Spirits… In Under 10 Minutes
WELCOME to Issue #205 of The Seedhead from Alex and Hannah at Dandelion Resourcing - a weekly confidence booster to help you step into naturally supernatural discipleship and mission!
This is a supernatural gift of perception given sovereignly by God to enable individuals in the church to distinguish the motivating spirit behind certain words or deeds.
The ability to discern the ‘source code’ behind a person or situation is enormously helpful. The Holy Spirit can help us discern what is going on in the place of motivation, especially as you step further into spiritual warfare.
The Bible text we look at in this video is 1 John 4:1-3, which begins, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” If the apostle John had to do this, you and I certainly need to!
While this is a gift we can ask for in advance, it is also something we can pray for in the moment. “Lord, please would you show us whether what we’re seeing here is from You, from this person, or from the enemy.”
Discernment is closely tied to prophecy. In fact, we would describe the gift of distinguishing between spirits as being part of the broader family of prophetic gifts, which also includes things like words of knowledge and wisdom.
As a result, like with all prophetic gifts, make sure that you do this in community wherever possible, so that it’s not just you saying, “I’m not sure about that guy!”
Here’s the video:
Next Steps
Next time you encounter a person or situation where you’re not quite sure what is motivating them, you can ask the Holy Spirit to show you what’s going on. Pray for the ability to distinguish the spirit.
Who around you seems good at doing this? How can you come alongside to learn from them or to partner together more?
Becoming a more spiritually discerning person is an important area of growth for most of us. Since God is gracious and generous, you can ask Him to do this in you!
Next week we’ll wrap up this series on Understanding Spiritual Gifts as we look at the gifts of tongues and interpretation of tongues. See you then!
With love,
Alex + Hannah
ALEX AND HANNAH ABSALOM
P.S. This autumn we’ll be speaking at Exponential West (in the Bay Area, Oct 22-24) and Exponential Central (in Chicago, Nov 19-21). Find out more here - and if you enter the coupon code holy2024 then you can join our pre-conference for free!
