By Pastor Sharon Williams from the Women Alive Worship Jacksonville April Meeting
These are important skills as believers, especially for leaders.
Discernment is defined- as perception, intuition, or awareness.
You know those feelings that come when we encounter situations or people we shouldn’t be with?
God gives us warning signs, but many times we ignore them.
Proverbs 2
My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. 2 Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. 3 Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. 4 Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. 5 Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God. 6 For the Lord grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. 7 He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity. 8 He guards the paths of the just and protects those who are faithful to him.
9 Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair, and you will find the right way to go. 10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy. 11 Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe.
Listen, tune in, search…. bring understanding, knowledge, and wisdom.
What is the difference between understanding, knowledge, and wisdom?
How do I know it’s God? When is it common sense and when is it divine?
Judges 13: 1-24
Samson’s parents – mother believed; father had to be convinced. She had insight/discernment.
2 In those days a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and they had no children. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah’s wife and said, “Even though you have been unable to have children, you will soon become pregnant and give birth to a son.
6 The woman ran and told her husband, “A man of God appeared to me! He looked like one of God’s angels, terrifying to see. I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name.
8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, saying, “Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who is to be born.”
9 God answered Manoah’s prayer, and the angel of God appeared once again to his wife as she was sitting in the field. But her husband, Manoah, was not with her. 10 So she quickly ran and told her husband, “The man who appeared to me the other day is here again!”
11 Manoah ran back with his wife and asked, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife the other day?”
(Manoah didn’t realize it was the angel of the Lord.) verse 16
20 As the flames from the altar shot up toward the sky, the angel of the Lord ascended in the fire. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground.
21 The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the Lord, 22 and he said to his wife, “We will certainly die, for we have seen God!”
What was the difference between Manoah and his wife? Eyes to see, it was so personal to her (a child promised)
Job 33:14-15
For God speaks again and again, though people do not recognize it. He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their beds.
Nehemiah 2:9-10,19-20, 6:1-9
9 When I came to the governors of the province west of the Euphrates River, I delivered the king’s letters to them. The king, I should add, had sent along army officers and horsemen to protect me. 10 But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard of my arrival, they were very displeased that someone had come to help the people of Israel.
19 But when Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem the Arab heard of our plan, they scoffed contemptuously. “What are you doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” they asked.
20 I replied, “The God of heaven will help us succeed. We, his servants, will start rebuilding this wall. But you have no share, legal right, or historic claim in Jerusalem.”
6 Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies found out that I had finished rebuilding the wall and that no gaps remained—though we had not yet set up the doors in the gates. 2 So Sanballat and Geshem sent a message asking me to meet them at one of the villages in the plain of Ono.
But I realized they were plotting to harm me, 3 so I replied by sending this message to them: “I am engaged in a great work, so I can’t come. Why should I stop working to come and meet with you?”
Realized – discernment or common sense?
9 They were just trying to intimidate us, imagining that they could discourage us and stop the work. So I continued the work with even greater determination.
Holy Spirit will come to reveal
1 Corinthians 2:9-11
That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”10 But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his, Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. 11 No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.
But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.
Watch the full video
About the Author
Pastor Sharon has been in ministry for over 48 years. She and her husband Daniel are founders of Go to Nations, a missionary sending agency working in 106 countries. As an ordained minister, Sharon was a part of the Christ the Redeemer Church Executive staff for twenty years. In 2010, Sharon began Act 4 the Nations, a non-profit organization working on five continents to help women attain a better way of life by partnering with missionaries and Anti-Human Trafficking organizations. https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Women-Arise-Womens-Devotional/dp/B09BYBFMW2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1K1DS8K78N2VN&keywords=chief+women+arise%21+book&qid=1645487532&sprefix=chief+women+arise+book%2Caps%2C67&sr=8-1