Gift of Discernment (part I)

By Odon Bulamba (28 September 2007)

Discernment is a gift used to help the church to understand what God's will is. Jesus told us to put our lamp on the hill for everyone to see. It must have kerosene in side and a wick to carry the kerosene to the flame. When we were children, we watched my mother with the kerosene lamp and she would make sure it was full of oil and the wick was long enough and it was cleaned regularly. The kerosene lamp must only have the right fluid inside. You can not use water or any other liquid, only kerosene.

If you say that you will mix the kerosene with diesel, there will be a big explosion and discernment is the same, when you try to mix up the Word of God with your feelings with what you believe should be true or correct, whoever you will go to talk to or speak to, things will not work properly and it will explode.

To discern means to understand, it also means to clarify. It is a gift from God that helps you to know how you should understand things and how you should transmit them from God to other people. It is the same role that the wick plays in the lamp, to make the connection between the source of energy which is petrol with the light. The source of energy is the church today and we are really similar to petrol because without us, the power of God will not act but that power is very small. He doesn't give us all his portion, he just gives to us a small part and says, “now use this for My glory for the growth of your church”. That small light we were given is what we are calling the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The kerosene lamp that you have will shine only a very small light compared to the big light of an electric bulb. My mother used to take a match and light the lamp and the light from the lamp is likely to continue to be there as long as no one moved the petrol or the wick. Just like petrol can dry out, we people, whenever we try to dry, the power of God won't work any more.

If you are really a son or daughter of God, whenever you put yourself away from God, whenever you remove yourself away from the church like taking the wick away from the entire lamp, then God will not have a place where he should dwell and the Holy Spirit will not have a chance to work anymore. That power will start to die and when it's dying you will start to see obscurity will increase in your life and finally that will be all, there will be no light at all.

In our lives and in our hearts we have the Word of God, we have got our thoughts and our energy and everything that we know, so when the Holy Spirit is going to enlighten us, what part of our bodies, hearts or resources do we use?

I will give you an example, someone was told that within two weeks your mother will meet with a person who will offer your mother three small boxes and those three small boxes are full treasure so your mother will become rich. That young man was so excited about that message he went first of all to tell all his friends, “I had a revelation today and something is coming”. His friends were like, “really, are you sure?” He said, “you will see it within a few days” and then within a few days they saw a man coming and offering his mother three small boxes.

When the mother received those boxes the man told everybody, “Did you see? Now that's what I told yesterday” and that brought up the bad intention of his friends to attack his mother and kill her to take the boxes because they knew it was a treasure.

So discernment is not the spirit of prophecy, discernment is something that we have to discover and take the message to someone we are told to.

When we discover a wrong preaching we shouldn’t tell others but go directly to the preacher and say, ‘according to my understanding, I believe this preaching is not too bad, but somewhere here doesn't fit’. For example in the Catholic church you cannot preach the Bible or the Gospel if you are not wearing the robe, if you go just like the way that Tyrone is there, they will not accept Tyrone as a priest because you must be in the robed. Why that? Why can't they accept people to preach the way that they are?

But if you have the spirit of discernment you can advise but make sure your advice won't be an attack. Make sure your advice won't be a battle or a fight but it will be something simple. Now you will be that wick that will make the transition between the petrol and fire and after that everybody will look around you and see the light is new but if people don't see the light in you, definitely they will see a darkness.

When it's time to go to bed our mother used to take that lamp and she used to remove the glass and blow the light out. Just a small blow would kill that fire and everything changed to darkness meaning that sometimes if you are not really keen to look after that small gift of yours, power will come from somewhere and blow it out and you will lose it

Discernment is very good for the church, it's very good for yourself and it's very good for the entire community because you can make the difference between wrong and right. You will know whether the messages are from God or from somewhere else and you will know if this encouragement is a true one or a fake one and it's not an assumption either.

Sometimes you can see someone coming to you and talking to you in a way that looks fake but that is the right way, that is the correct way and some other times someone can come to you in church who look serious but are telling a false story, so if you just look at the appearance, a person can be mislead you.

So discernment now will help you to understand what is correct and what is not correct. Let's say you go to church on Sunday and the preacher is preaching that Adam and Eve had five children. Is that true or false? Tell me the answer; Adam had four girls and three boys, is this true or false? If it isn't written and you haven't read that, just say, ‘I have never read that’, because there are some other Bibles that have more books than yours and maybe there is manuscripts there that say more.

Don't make it a discussion when it's a matter of discernment, don't tell someone they are completely wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and I can't believe it. Better to say, ‘from my Bible that isn't written like that, I have never come across that, how can we know what is the truth, how can we support each other to help each other to know if we're on the right track?’

When we are discerning that someone is wrong, it's not now your opportunity to go and attack them. Discernment works with wisdom and if you want discernment to be something great we have to take the example of Solomon when those two ladies gave birth and accidentally one of them rolled over on top of her son and killed the baby and in the morning time she discovered that her baby was dead and swapped her baby with another one and the other mother knew somehow that this was not her baby and she believed the one that was the alive was hers.

Judges were unable to bring justice, lawyers could not defend the case, people who had wisdom could not sort it out and no one could intervene, so they had to go to the king. How many levels did they pass to reach the level to see a king which means that this was a serious case. It was serious because the involved life. The King discerned this one is wrong and that one is right but how should I put it so that they won't be offended. How should I intervene? So he said, ‘give me a sword and we will share this body, you will take one part and the other will take the other part’ and of course the mother of the boy cried and said, ‘please don't do it, don't kill him, better to keep him alive and given to her’. The other one said, ‘divide the baby in two it will be good’.

It was clear, black on white that the baby wasn't hers, so the King sorted out the problem. We are also kings and we are also princes of this world and if there is an issue that we have to deal with, God will give to us the discernment so we will be able to clarify things to challenge the situation. This challenge won't be for our glory, to show the world that we are supernatural, but the challenge will be to support and to help and to assist, to make things clear for others.

Very often wives will tell husbands, ‘see now, I told you, I told you, you didn't listen’. Although you discerned that if your husband were to do something it would be a mistake, you don't have to tell him in front of everybody. Just encourage your husband and tell him that is fine, I know it's a problem, you didn't understand it, anyway let's find another way and let's move on.

Some ladies and some men will become angry whenever they discern something. For example, sister Colleen has lost a wallet and she discovers that I stole it and she discerns that I am the one who stole it; how will Colleen feel knowing that someone like Odon stole my wallet, this is unbelievable, I can't believe this and she will ask God, is this really true God and you will say yes, he is the one, he has that under his shoes or somewhere there.

Colleen will wonder, shall I really continue to believe that he is a brother in God.