A CRITICAL SPIRIT MASQUERADING ITSELF AS DISCERNMENT IS DEVOID OF THE ESSENTIALS OF WISDOM; FAITH & LOVE ♥

A CRITICAL SPIRIT MASQUERADING ITSELF AS DISCERNMENT IS DEVOID OF THE ESSENTIALS OF WISDOM; FAITH & LOVE ♥

“For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.” - King Solomon

Trusting in God is the basic fundamentals of wisdom. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7). If we fear God than we will trust Him. True wisdom comes only from understanding who God is and that He is holy, just, and righteous. Seek wisdom from God through wise counsel and prayer in our everyday dealings with others and in our life. Wisdom and understanding are BETTER than gold and silver.

“Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23 says,).

If we want to have life flowing to and from us, we MUST guard our hearts against judgmental, critical and suspicious thoughts. Trust and faith bring joy to life and help relationships grow to their maximum potential. Criticism and suspicion are deleterious to a relationship; crippling an entire relationship and usually destroying it. A critical spirit is distorted thinking; a bi-product of pride and/or derived from our limited and predisposed negative point of view; based upon our limited world of past disappointments and/or bad experiences. A critical spirit is devoid of faith. The Bible tells us to love and believe in one another. "Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance" (1 Corinthians 13:7).

A balanced attitude is always the best protocol. We can use wisdom and discernment in our dealings with others but our wisdom and discernment must come directly from God; out of a "pure" motive of wanting the best for others including blessing our enemies. Sometimes people think they have discernment when actually they are just being suspicious of others. True discernment discerns both good and bad; suspicion just finds bad. We must pray for the true gifts, not flesh that masquerades as gifts of the Spirit. True spiritual discernment will provoke prayer, not gossip. There are times when I have had discernment and I have kept quiet and just prayed for years till I saw God move in the situation as I know He is always the best judge; even if I think I know better. Other times I have taken situations in my own hands and saw little improvement or transient superficial improvement. Why do we so easily take things into our own hands walking in our flesh? The Answer: It takes faith to trust in a God that we can't see and leave things in His hands, and trust that He will take care of others better than we can. Most often we believe that we could do a better job than God. No one is exempt from this; we are all challenged with this on a daily basis if were not careful.

If a genuine problem is being discerned by a genuine gift, it will follow the scriptural pattern for dealing with it, not the fleshly ways that only spread and compound the problem. In addition, discernment without love is like a clanging symbol; even the gift of discernment calls for the proper spiritual protocol in its dealings! "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries, and ALL KNOWLEDGE, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not LOVE, I am nothing" (NIV, Corinthians 13:2).

In conclusion, our thoughts are silent words that only we and the Lord hear, but those words affect our inner man, our attitude, our joy and our health. When we begin to operate in the mind of Christ, we will step into a whole new realm of living. It all starts in our mind and our dealings with negative thoughts taking them "captive to the mind of Christ" and demolishing every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. "We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ " (NASB, 2 Corinthians 10:5). Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things" (Phillipians 4:8).

                                                               ---Nuggets of Wisdom By: Ciria Lostaunau