Discernment & Discretion

Discernment or discretion is the ability that God gives us to think and make correct choices. But sound judgment is much more than that. It is given only to those who follow God, who seek the Lord and who obey Him. While sound judgment needs discernment, it goes on to insight, wisdom and a knowing that can only come from the leading of the Holy Spirit in one's life. It requires knowledge of God's Word, His ways, His nature and His character.

Dishonesy

Dishonesty is a difficult sin to avoid. But it affects the very core of our being. It makes us unworthy of anybody's trust. It makes us unable to trust others. It eventually makes us unable to know (or trust) even ourselves. Often it impedes our ability to relate to others. Even the smallest portion of dishonesty has enough of the poison of deceit to kill your spiritual life. Despite the rationale you'll have for white lies - they'll never be worth it.

Good Advice

When most people need advice they go to their friends first. Our friends accept us and it is usually easy to agree with them. But our friends are so much like us that they may not have any different answers than we could come up with on our own. Instead, we should turn to those who are older and wiser than we are. We should look for people who have more life experience, a godly perspective and are likely to challenge the way we traditionally think about things.

Mental Sharpness

Mental sharpness comes from being around good people. Seriously. It requires partners and peers who can challenge one another and stimulate thinking. They will be people who can attack a thought without attacking each other.

Heart's Desires

When you set your heart on something, you may lose your ability to assess it objectively. With your desire blinding your judgment, you may proceed into something that would not be wise. This could be an unwise relationship. It could be a wasteful purchase. Or it could simply be a poorly conceived plan. What are the desires of your heart?

Sexual Sin

Sexual sin is very dangerous in any form. It destroys family life - including present or even future marriages. It erodes a person's capacity or ability to love. It degrades human beings and turns them into objects. It can lead to disease or even death. It can result in unwanted children. Of course, all forms of sexual sin are against God's will or us too.

Christian Love

Christian love is not a feeling - but a choice. We can choose to be concerned with people's well being and treat them with respect, whether or not we feel affection toward them. If we choose to love them, God will help us genuinely express that love.

Willing Believers

Many believers want an abundance of God's grace and peace. They deeply desire His blessing on their daily lives. But they are not willing to put forth the effort to get to know Him through Bible study and prayer. Intimate knowledge of Christ escapes them. What they do not understand is that this intimate knowledge is the key to God's abundant blessing.

Fool Defined

A fool is not someone with a mental deficiency - but rather someone with a character deficiency (such as rebellion, laziness or uncontrolled anger). The fool is not stupid. Usually a fool is quite clever. But a fool is one who lacks the wisdom to discern right from wrong or good from bad.

Handling Worry

Carrying the weight of your worries, stress and daily struggles by yourself reveals that you don't really trust God fully with your life. Don't submit to your circumstances. Rather submit yourself to the God of your circumstances.

Opposition's Defense

When someone turns to Christ they will immediately face opposition. Mature Christians should help new believers resist such opposition by helping them be faithful to Christ. We can surround them as new friends and encourage them to develop new habits of righteousness and a new lifestyle of godliness. These will be their best defense against the opposition Christianity will surely bring them.

Needs

It has been said that God's provision is always perfect. Some may question that because they see what appear to be un-met needs in their lives. But God knows our needs. He may be the only one who can truly discern what they really are. The thing is that God knows our deepest needs are spiritual. And those are the ones we have the hardest time seeing!

Confronting Leaders

Micah, the Old Testament prophet, had to denounce the sins of the spiritual leaders - priests, prophets, etc. They were the ones responsible for teaching people right from wrong. They were the leaders who should have known God's ways and taught them to His people. But they had become the "worst of sinners." All sin is bad. But sin that misleads others or neglects them is the worst kind. The dividing line between right and wrong is often blurred. But spiritual leaders are supposed to help others see it.

Shattered Comfort

God may have to shatter our comfort in order to place us in the best place to see Him. We usually only really encounter God outside of our comfort zones. But as long as we are surrounded by our sense of control and importance - we will not know who God really is.

Two Sins

Two of the most difficult sins to resist are that of pride and sexual immorality. Pride says, "I deserve it." Sexual desire says, "I need it." Pride appeals to the empty head and sexual sin appeals to the empty heart. Only with God's strength can we overcome such sins.

Knowledge & Wisdom

In this age of information, knowledge is plentiful - but wisdom is scarce. People don't spend enough time in thought. We don't wrestle with facts and information, analyzing or evaluating - especially in prayer.

Wisdom is far more than knowledge. It never leans on its own understanding and it is aware of its own ignorance. But wisdom is not a separate being. Rather it is the mind of God revealed in those who belong to Him.

Seeing Your Sin

When we are blinded by envy and hatred, or deceived by pride and arrogance - it is impossible to see your own sin. You may be tempted to think that it's not there.

Hate & Love

Hate and love have become overused words in today's society. They are almost cliches - tossed carelessly at objects, situations, experiences and of course - people. The casual use of such words as love and hate have emptied them of their meaning. So we no longer can comprehend how God loves us but hates sin. Both have become abstract concepts that escape us.

God's Mission

When we respond to Christ's love by trusting Him and obeying Him, His purpose becomes our mission. The purpose that drove Christ becomes the cause that moves us.

Understand Evil

To understand evil, one must first understand God.

1. God Himself is good. (Psalm 11:7)
2. God created a world that fell due to man's sin. (Romans 5:12)
3. God will recreate the world without any evil. (Revelation 21:1)
4. God is stronger than evil. (Matthew 13:41-43 & Revelation 19:11-21)
5. God controls evil and helps us overcome it. (Matthew 11:28-30)
6. God uses everything for His good purposes. Even evil. (Genesis 50:20 & Romans 8:28)

These are the most important things we need to know about evil.

Great Escapes

Often the rich build great escapes - where they can live comfortably and not be confronted by the poverty or need in the world. It is possible for them to avoid the woes of this fallen world altogether. But God is not pleased if we isolate ourselves from the needs of others. He wants us to meet those needs! He wants us to care for others as He cares for us. We must learn to put the needs of others before our own wants. God's kingdom has no place for selfishness or indifference. (I suspect God's kingdom has no place for gated, golf-course communities either.)

Ignoring the Poor

To ignore the poor and the oppressed is to ignore those whom God made and loves as well as those who Christ came to save. We must go beyond feeling bad for these people. We need to wade into the messiness of their lives to bring them the love of God. What sacrifices have we made to intervene in their lives and bless them?

God Thoughts

Some people don't think about God until they become angry. Discouragement, disappointment or even disgust seem to bring God into focus for us. Oddly, we seem eager to blame God for our troubles too.

Taking A Stand

We often think of taking a stand against those who would led us into immoral behavior. But sometimes it is necessary to take a hard line against the most moral of people. Simply put, even the most mature Christians may still need to be confronted at times. Are you willing to do that?

Friendship

If we insist on friendship with those who mock the Lord and His ways - who mock what God considers important - we may find ourselves in sin because we gradually become indifferent to His will. True friends should help us draw closer to God - and not hinder or discourage our relationship with or obedience to God. Do all of your friends do that?

Spiritual Discernment

Spiritual discernment enables us to draw conclusions based on God's perspective, make wise decisions in difficult circumstances, recognize the activities of God, distinguish the correct and incorrect uses of Scripture, and identify or expose false teaching. Did you know that spiritual discernment was this useful?

Fitting In

It is natural to want to fit in. But Christ-followers are new creations, born from above and changed from within. Our values and life styles should confront the world and clash with accepted morals. True believers don't blend in very all at all. They aren't supposed to!

Obedience To God

Obedience to God is the result of a true relationship with God. It is the evidence of that relationship. However, obedience can never produce or earn that relationship with God. The God of the universe does not love us because we are obedient. In fact, He loves us in spite of our disobedience! But we will obey Him because of our love for Him and because of our understanding of His love for us.

Understanding God

Real understanding of God always results in practical and compassionate action towards people. There are no exceptions.

Rich People

How we treat the rich and those of higher status often reflects what we hope to get from them. But how we treat the poor, who can give us nothing, reflects our true character.

Generation Gap

Pride often keeps older people from trying to understand younger people. It keeps younger people from listening to those who are older. Each disregards the perceptive of the other.

But Christ-followers are to be humble enough to respect and submit and serve one another. The young should follow the leadership of the older - who should lead by example.

Respect those who are older than you. Listen to those who are younger than you. Be humble enough to admit that you can learn from each other.