Lesson #13; objectivity and discernment

The gift of prophecy is a wonderful gift to Man. However, the one who prophesies is often faced with doubts about God using him or her to prophesy. After giving a prophecy, the speaker can face tremendous self-condemnation. Also, the enemy condemns the prophesier. The battle is common and can drive one away from serving God through prophecy. Today’s lesson is about developing an objectivity about oneself. Instead of being familiar with all our weaknesses, the Holy Spirit asks us to focus on His righteousness. Also, instead of being sensitive to the one whom you are prophesying to and their feelings, the Lord asks us to become increasingly sensitive to His heart.

In my mind, objectivity is “not owning what is not your stuff”. We talked in Lesson #2 about separating our thoughts and identifying their different sources. Some thoughts come from our heart, and contain our “stuff.” Let’s go one step beyond identifying the source of our thoughts, for not all accusations are in thoughts alone. Sometimes it is an actual person who asks us about our prophecy. We have their thoughts, our thoughts, and the enemy’s thoughts. So, how do we know the truth about what is our stuff, and what is the other person’s stuff, when confronted with accusations?

We know that we should “own” the contents of our hearts. Though our hearts can be deceitful, God brings its contents to our knowledge and helps us to deal with it. We should daily come under the cleansing blood of Jesus. His gentle convictions will cleanse us, and we can walk in confidence before Him. Satan just lies to us. He is not helpful in restoring us to righteousness and has no power to change our habits. Satan’s job is to get us to dwell on our sins and weaknesses . . . . forever. He wants us to be overly sensitive to our imperfections. The verse that came to me about this is 1 John 3:19,20; “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.” My study Bible says that if our conscience is oversensitive, we can quiet this condemnation by the knowledge that God Himself has declared active love to be an evidence of salvation (verse 18). Evidence. Let’s look at what God considers it to be.

The book of 1 John is the “how to know and see” book. It is a great guide on how to be objective about what is in our hearts, and the hearts of others, by what we see. You might say that we can support our estimation of our standing with God by these things, which are considered evidence. In this book John tells us

1. Why the world does not receive us (3:1)
• The world does not know Jesus. Remember that the carnal man cannot receive the things of the Spirit (1 Cor 2:14)
2. Who is righteous (3:7)
• He who does what is righteous. Jesus told us that we would know people by the fruit they bore (Mt 7:15-20)
3. Who is of the devil(3:8)
• He who does what is sinful. Jesus said that those who love lies belong to the devil (Jn 8:44)
4. How the children of the devil act (3:10)
• Anyone who does not do what is right, and anyone who does not love his neighbor. In the parable of the Good Samaritan we learn that our neighbor is anyone who needs our help (Lk 10:30-37)
5. How the children of God act, and why they cannot continue in sin (3:9)
• Because God’s seed remains in him; he has been born of God. When Nicodemus asked Jesus how to be “born again” Jesus told him that to enter the kingdom of God, we must be born of the Spirit (Jn 3:5)
6. How we know we have passed from death to life (3:14)
• Because we love our brothers. Jesus commanded us to love one another just as He loved us (Jn 15:12)
7. How to know what true love is (3:16)
• We ought to lay down our life for our brother. In this way we follow Jesus’ example (Jn 15:13)
8. How we know when we fail at love (3:17)
• When we see our brother has a need and withhold our help. James tells us that we should not just wish our brother good, but should supply what he needs (Jms 2:15-16)
9. How love behaves (3:18)
• Not just with words but with actions and in truth. (see #8)
10. How we know we belong to truth (3:19)
• By acting like Jesus did in all the previous points (#1-10)
11. How we know He lives in us (3:24)
• We know it by the Spirit He gave us. God poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given to us (Rm 5:5)

These are principles which help us to be objective with anyone who condemns us, either person or spirit; once you establish what you “know” and what you ”see”, you can separate yourself from the lies of the enemy and from your own tendency to condemn yourself.

Being objective is about owning the truth about yourself, and is important. In Ephesians we read that we are to have a “belt of truth buckled around your waist,” (Eph 6:14). A soldier needs to have something that he can fasten his sword to. The belt of truth holds up the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. When the enemy assaults you, you need the belt of truth to keep the Word of God at hand. Then you can speak the Word of God to your accuser. If your enemy can confuse you about the truth, then there’s nothing to hold the sword on with. If the enemy, whether a man or a spirit, accuses you of wrong-doing, you need to know your standing with God. If you succumb to accusations which are untrue, you compromise the very word of prophecy the Lord sent you to deliver.

Here is a Word the Lord gave me which fits well here; “Discernment is the weapon against condemnation. Truth is the weapon against confusion. The strength of the strong-in-faith is in maintaining their victories. Without discernment, the battles of the mind cannot be won, and faith in what is true will be cast aside for belief in what is a lie. Discernment will lead to wisdom if a man fears God and loves the truth.”

This is the end of the lesson. Though the tendency is to believe that being humble would cause us to admit to error when accused, we do not see this example in the scriptures. Let us walk hand-in-hand with the Holy Spirit, He who cleanses us daily and brings us to stand in the righteousness of Christ. If in anything we are in need of correction, we need to be soft to His convictions and the words of others in this area. However, let he who prophesies in the Spirit do so in faith and not waver. Amen.