Quotes About Discernment

We should always choose our books as God chooses our friends, just a bit beyond us, so that we have to do our level best to keep up with them.

What hinders me from hearing is that I am taken up with other things. It is not that I will not hear God, but I am not devoted in the right place. I am devoted to things, to service, to convictions, and God may say what He likes but I do not hear Him.

The call of God is a call according to the nature of God; where we go in obedience to that call depends entirely on the providential circumstances which God engineers, and is not of any moment. The danger is to fit the call of God into the idea of our own discernment and say, "God called me there." If we say so and stick to it, then it is good-bye to the development of the life of God in us.

Never ask another person's advice about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will almost always side with Satan. ". . . I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood . . ." (Galatians 1:16).

Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says.

Never run before God gives you His direction.

Wait for the fruit to manifest itself and do not be guided by your own fancy.

If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself—begin to have spiritual discernment.

The call of God is the expression of God's nature, not ours. God providentially weaves the threads of His call through our lives, and only we can distinguish them. It is the threading of God's voice directly to us over a certain concern, and it is useless to seek another person's opinion of it. Our dealings over the call of God should be kept exclusively between ourselves and Him.

If we are saved and sanctified, God guides us by our everyday choices. And if we are about to choose what He does not want, He will give us a sense of doubt or restraint, which we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once.

When we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism, we block our fellowship with God. God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.

The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God's call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude.

One of the most subtle burdens God ever put on us as saints is the burden of discernment concerning other souls. He reveals things in order that we may take the burden of the souls before Him and form the mind of Christ about them. It is not that we bring God into touch with our minds, but that we rouse ourselves until God is able to convey His mind to us about the one for whom we intercede.

God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticise, but that we may intercede.

Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent or self-gratifying; that belief came from the pit of hell itself, regardless of how beautiful it may sound.

God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayer we might come to discern His mind.

It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice.

Never run before God's guidance. If there is the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt - don't.

Beware of competing calls once the call of God grips you.

Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven't, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear.

voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze—so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways.

No man by mere high human wisdom would dare undertake a step for Jesus' sake unless he knows that the Holy Spirit has directly spoken to him; and until He comes, I shall not go.

Which of my convictions have more to do with my own personal preferences than with God's revelation?

Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent; it came from the pit, no matter how beautiful it sounds.