A BNORMALITIES AND NEUROPATHOLOGY IN R ETT SYNDROME PATIENTS

your spiritual senses

here's another part of Hebrews 5:14 that describes discernment:

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...by reason of use have their senses exercised....

We all know that our physical man has senses. We can feel or touch, see, smell, taste, and hear. The same thing is true over in the spiritual side of man. Our spirit man has those senses. The senses of the physical man recognize the natural world; the senses of the spirit man recognize the heavenly world.

Psalm 34:8 tells us to taste and see that the Lord is good.

When the Bible tells you to taste of the Lord, it means to perceive, partake, and experience all that He is. It means to intimately take a portion of Himself to you and commune there.

Many times when the Spirit of the Lord moves, you can perceive a certain attribute that He has come to reveal of Himself. Flow with that, taste it, perceive it. Receive the blessings and benefits He has come to give you. I have spiritually perceived or tasted of the Lord and I'm sure you have too.

We're the most familiar with hearing in the spirit and seeing in the spirit. We're also familiar with spiritual sensitivity, which isour spirit man's ability to touch.

I would have to say that I've tasted, smelled, seen, heard, and felt the different moves and operations of the Lord. That's spiritual discernment.

Paul says that we are to use those spiritual senses to reach out and detect. Only by using or exercising those spiritual senses can they be trained for accuracy between good and evil.

Now the Liardon terminology for reach out and detect is what I call "putting up my antenna, using my radar, and scanning"!

I take my position as a leader very seriously. I scan my church, my staff, and I scan my Bible school students.

While I'm praying in front of them, I begin to scan the room to see if anything pops up. What I mean by "pops up" is that I'm looking for strife, division, disobedience, or willful sin. Maybe they've been someplace they shouldn't have been and something ugly got on them! Or maybe they were in a place and all of a sudden something just hit them, and they don't know what's wrong. That's where I come in.

I don't look with suspicion. I'm not snooping. I'm not hacking away at them, sure that something is there. No, I'm just scanning. If something is contrary to God, it just pops up. Then God tells me what to do. I get it off that person or out of the atmosphere. Then we all rejoice and go on. That's part of my job in watching over their souls.

When you're in a tough situation or something sounds real confusing, just sit back and put up your antenna. Then scan the situation with your spiritual radar and see if anything pops up.

Many times it will be your spiritual radar that picks up the real problem underneath all the confusion.

Exercise your discernment in daily situations like that. Do like Paul says and reach out and detect.

That's what I do in my meetings. When I have the service, I'm the one responsible and accountable for what I pick up and discern. I don't do these things to control people; I discern because I have to answer to God for it. I want to make sure there's nothing there to wrongly influence the people. I want all to be well with everyone who has come.

Because I have that reputation, many people have told me they've fasted and prayed before they came to the meetings, making sure they were clean. That's great! If everyone would do

developing your spiritual senses that, we could really explore the depths that God had planned for those particular meetings!

You might say, "Well, Roberts, when I come to your meetings I don't want you scanning me!"

That means you've got something to hide!

That's a humorous response, but it illustrates a good point. If we are truly honest with ourselves and, above all, desire to be right with God, we will want to get rid of anything that is hindering us. When we get around a person who has discerned a problem, then we'd say, "Well, get it out! Help! Help! Help!"

If you want to continue maturing in God, you must always carry that kind of heart attitude.

Discernment or a Murdering Scalpel?

It should be the goal of every believer to have discernment operating in their everyday lives. However, some of the attitudes surrounding it have been carnal and wrong.

Remember, whether you're discerning good or evil, always approach the situation with faith, hope, and love. If not, you'll become a scalpel that cuts and divides the brethren.

For example, if you don't operate in those attributes you'll be like a young, inexperienced doctor. He knows the scalpel is to cut, but he's very misled in how to use it.

He knows there's disease somewhere in the body, so the uninformed doctor takes the scalpel and starts chopping. He doesn't know where the disease is or where all the organs are, but he'll cut through every vital thing in order to find what he's looking for.

He chops the liver to find the stomach. Then he cuts both kidneys and deflates one lung. He damages the ventricles to the heart, all in the name of searching for a disease that's in there somewhere.

That's like a Technicolor horror movie! But sadly, it happens.

Instead of discerning with an attitude of faith, hope, and love, it's an operation that recklessly searches for the core problem, hacking whatever gets in its way.

Know this well: If you don't have the faith and hope for change or the love and mercy of God, then your discernment will become a murdering scalpel. It will not be the helping hand of divine surgery.

Remember, when God shows you something, you won't have to hunt. Mature yourself to operate in spiritual knowings.

Make sure you keep the principles of faith, hope, and love inside of you. God will honor those who are good stewards.

chapter ten