Month: February 2026

Sunday’s Coming

In recent years there have been a couple of popular contemporary Christian songs about Sunday coming. The implicit idea in them is that if we can hang on through the rest of the week and make it to Sunday, we will be okay. Now, while the songs may be okay if you are just hanging on, another perspective that comes to me is about Monday.

However, first, we look at Sunday and the purpose of our gathering. A couple of scriptures come to mind.

15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ – 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Ephesians 4:15–16 (NKJV)

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:23–25 (NKJV)

The two passages above address why we as His body gather. The Ephesians one addresses the importance of speaking truth in love to one another in order to grow spiritually. Paul also speaks of the importance of growth coming through what joints supply. The important point here is that a joint is a relationship between two or more parts. We need one another. The Hebrews passage is clear that we need to gather and stir one another to walk in good works. Again, we need one another to grow and walk out our callings. These are reasons for a Sunday gathering, or any other gathering of the body. To build up and encourage one another to walk out what Jesus has called us to walk in.

This now brings us to Monday, or any other day of the week. If scripturally a primary purpose of gathering on Sunday is to stir one another to engage in love and good works and to strengthen one another then we logically need to consider the end purpose of that, which Paul tells us.

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 (NKJV)

Given that Sunday is only one day of the week and God has prepared good works for us that means that we have assignments not only on Sunday but Monday to Saturday as well.

This means we need to think not only that Sunday is coming, but we need to look forward to Monday coming and seek to discern the assignment He has for us that day. Sunday we can worship and fellowship with our fellow believers then on Monday look forward to the opportunity to take what we have experienced out to our home and the marketplace.

In conclusion, yes, every seven days Sunday is coming. Let’s appreciate that, then let’s use it to embrace our calling the other six days of the week.

Without Ceasing

I assume that at some point in time you have read or heard Paul’s admonition to ‘pray without ceasing’ and may have even attempted it. Let’s take a look at the context to get at what Paul was telling his readers, and by extension us.

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies. 21 Test all things; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:16–22 (NKJV)

What is clear is that Paul cannot be referring to praying 24/7 because he also says, ‘Rejoice always’ and, ‘in everything give thanks.’ Three inclusive commands, leading to the obvious question, “Paul, what is it? Are we to be praying all the time, rejoicing all the time or giving thanks all the time?”

Always, without ceasing and everything are three different words in Greek but they all cover a broad inclusive category. Given that we can do none of them 24/7, let alone all three, let’s seek to understand Paul’s point. Paul’s sharing of the gospel at Thessalonica is recorded in Acts 17:1-9. He began preaching in the synagogue, a number of Jews were converted then a multitude of Gentiles. Meaning the congregation was made up of a mixed multitude but predominantly Gentile in ethnicity.  

The Jewish converts had a background in terms of how to pray, the Gentiles may or may not have had one depending on their cultural roots. They would have all had an idea of a spiritual realm inhabited by God, gods or other spiritual beings. We don’t know specifically what Paul taught them regarding prayer but we can be confident that he taught them something given his command above.

So, how would they have applied Paul’s instructions? Paul began his letter encouraging them, referenced their faithfulness along with suffering and rejection for their newfound faith. He then encouraged them that Christ would return for them at some point in time and told them to comfort and encourage one another. This is the background for his closing thoughts.

In essence Paul addresses two things. The first is an attitude, one characterized by rejoicing, prayer and thankfulness, no matter their circumstances. The second is an exhortation to embrace, discern and test the things of the Spirit, not cynically but with the aforementioned approach, rejoicing, prayer and thankfulness. As far as possible he wanted their first response to be these three things, always.  

For us that means we are called to embrace rejoicing, prayer and thankfulness in all seasons. That doesn’t mean we receive a cancer diagnosis and respond with ‘Praise the Lord.’ It does mean that we view our circumstances in light of both time and eternity. For example, I am just about at ten weeks post op for my second knee replacement. With my first knee I finally slept through the night after seven weeks. Yet as I write this, I have now not had a proper night’s sleep for the past 68 days due to the pain at night. I am not thankful or rejoicing that I cannot sleep properly. I am thankful that I had my knee replaced, confident that I will come through this and praying and seeking His face in relation to my need for better sleep. I know this is a difficult season in time that will have an end and that in the light of eternity is a miniscule moment. That is my present application of Paul’s admonitions. How are you applying them in your life?

Deepening Discernment Part 2

In my last post I focused on the process of discernment, which I anchored in Hebrews 5:13-14. I also noted that, “…the two obvious levels of discernment are knowing and paying attention to the scriptures and knowing and paying attention to His voice.” Here we will delve deeper into that process.

To actually develop and deepen our discernment we begin with shifting our focus beyond outward appearances. It is easy to see behaviour; it is hard to discern hearts. This is the first area to grow in. We must head Paul’s admonition to stop judging by outward appearances.

16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 2 Corinthians 5:16 (NKJV)

I am certainly not saying we should not address clearly sinful behaviour. I am saying in general we need to look beyond behaviour to try to see hearts. 

Here is an example. I read of an experience a man had on the subway. He saw a man get on with two young children. The children seemed ‘out of control’ and were bothering other passengers. He judged the man a poor parent and decided to point out his negligent parenting. When he got the man’s attention he said, “Sir, I don’t know if you have noticed but your children are bothering the other passengers?” The man seemed to come around to greater awareness and responded, “I’m sorry, we just came from the hospital where their mother died.” What do you think happened to the man’s assessment of this father as a neglectful parent? Did judgment turn to compassion? 

To discern rightly we need to seek to suspend judgment and try to understand hearts. We also need to consider whether there are things we need to lay down that colour our discernment. Do we have a history with someone that we need to lay down? Do we disagree with their doctrine? Is their doctrine our measure of their hearts? Most importantly, are we actively listening to the Holy Spirit and seeking His viewpoint as we seek to discern truth and life? 

When it comes to discernment our call is to embrace the truth at a heart rather than head level. We pursue not a unity of belief in every single point of doctrine but unity around intimacy with Jesus (this will sort out a lot of our doctrine over time). Paul provides a goal for us. 

13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; Ephesians 4:13 (NKJV)

When we lay down our judgments and pursue His heart He will correct us, after all, the Holy Spirit is a faithful teacher!

24 These also who erred in spirit will come to understanding, and those who complained will learn doctrine. Isaiah 29:24 (NKJV)

I think our greatest aid to discerning accurately is walking closely to Jesus. Consider the following passage.

9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, 10 that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, 11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9–11 (NKJV)

Here Paul is saying that when our love for Jesus abounds, we are able to discern and approve the things that are excellent. An encounter with Jesus’ heart is something deeper than information about Him. It is a pulling back of the veil over our hearts so that we can experience more of His heart and see clearly. Loving Jesus produces love for one another and aligns our heart with His heart.  

What happens if we have this prayer answered? As we receive a revelation of His heart, we know how He feels about us, which brings release and freedom, and as our ear gets near to His heart, we can also hear how His heart beats for others! The caution of course is simply assuming our judgments are accurate discernment. Thus, we need a way to test what we believe we are discerning.

To practice discerning, I offer something I learned many years ago and have taught a number of times. The distinction between intuition and insight, recognizing that intuition is a spiritual function while insight is a function of the mind. 

11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 1 Corinthians 2:11-12 (NKJV)  

In the verses above, in the original Greek, the word ‘know’ refers to perceiving or being aware of something. The same Greek word is used in passages that refer to Jesus intuitively perceiving, becoming aware of, or knowing something. 

But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.” Matthew 12:25 (NKJV) 

When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you?” John 6:61 (NKJV)

Now, unlike Jesus, who was always accurate, when we perceive or become internally aware of something we need to test it. In essence we become aware of or discern something in our spirit but need to test it with our mind. The process is that we discern something via intuition, a ‘gut feeling’ in our spirit that initiates a process. We then engage our mind to test it and the ‘aha’ experience, insight, completes the process. In essence, to test our discernment there needs to be a marriage between our spirit and our mind.

How does this work in practice? In ministering to people, I have frequently shared with people things about their lives that I had no natural intellectual way of knowing. For example, I remember sharing with someone that the Lord wanted to dance with them. I only knew the person’s name and nothing else about them as they had showed up to our small group for the first time that evening. There were 15-20 of sitting on chairs in a circle worshipping when I shared what I ‘perceived’ or ‘became aware’ of. The woman was deeply emotionally impacted by what I said and it was confirmation of the accuracy of what I shared. The way I ‘heard’ this from the Spirit was simply a growing internal sense that I needed to tell this lady that the Lord wanted to dance with her so I stopped the worship and in front of everyone said something like, “I think the Lord wants you to know that He wants to dance with you.” She responded with tears, good tears and verbally share the significance of the impact of what I had said. I don’t recommend doing this in front of a group unless you are accustomed to hearing Him speak this way, which I was, and thus was confident it was Him.  

On another occasion, when leaving a job, I shared with the manager two things I sensed in prayer that morning. At the time I wasn’t praying for him, I was in prayer and these thoughts arose in my spirit. He was not a believer but was interested and asked me about them later in the day so he could write them down. The things I shared with him both took place within a few months.  

A very important factor is that when I share this way, and I encourage others to do the same, I always share it as my sense of something I believe I am hearing from the Lord as I offer it to them. I often preface what I am sharing with, ‘This may sound odd.’ I share in this way because we need to test what we discern and present it as something for others to weigh (1 Corinthians 14:29). I only remember one occasion of being insistent on something I was sensing from the Spirit and when I pressed the issue the person became angry with me. A week later the same individual came back, apologized, and affirmed that I had been correct.       

So, discerning requires paying attention to what we are hearing in our spirits and then testing that discernment with our minds in line with scripture. This idea of understanding intuition and insight lays a basic foundation for knowing how to test what we believe we are discerning. Malachi said it well. 

Therefore take heed to your spirit. (Malachi 2:16)

Deepening Discernment Part 1

In recent years the Lord has exposed a great deal of sin by well known church leaders and movements. In recent weeks it seems to have significantly increased, particularly in charismatic circles. There are varying opinions and assertions found in many places on social media, and in reading about it and listening to opinions it seems some would like to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When this happens there has been a departure from discernment to judgment.

From my perspective the events of recent years and the very fresh present example, is a call for us as His body to walk in a deeper level of discernment, to separate the wheat from the chaff. I say deeper because I believe that discernment operates at more than one level, so here we will delve into it a bit.

Discernment has long been an important subject to me and I first wrote about it over three decades ago. At that time, I defined discernment as follows, and still adhere to this definition, “Seeing the reality which lies behind appearances.” On the surface this may suggest that we require some mystical spiritual gift to exercise discernment if we need to discern the reality behind surface impressions.  Yet my goal is just the opposite. I want discernment to be both practiced and practical. While 1 Corinthians 12 lists the gift of discerning of spirits, which I think can be useful in exercising discernment, the primary New Testament text on discernment is in Hebrews.

13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Hebrews 5:13–14 (NKJV)

This passage makes it plain that discernment is not some mystical gift but is in fact the logical outgrowth of using our senses in submission to the Spirit.   

To better grasp the process of discernment we will break this passage down a bit. First, the writer of Hebrews informs us the undiscerning are those who are ‘unskilled in the word of righteousness.’  An obvious reference to the scriptures. The clear implication being that a key aspect of discernment is developing the ability to rightly divide ‘the word of truth,’ the scriptures (2 Timothy 2:15). As the writer of Hebrews puts it, our discernment deepens through ‘reason of use.’ The phrase is one word in Greek and refers to habit or practice. Our discernment deepens as we practice discerning!

Here is an example that happened to me recently. I am a member of a few Christian Apologetics groups on Facebook. Someone posted an idea about the blind man Jesus healed who first saw men like trees walking then was able to see clearly after Jesus prayed for him the second time. Ostensibly the post was just an idea but then the writer quickly shifted into presenting his ideas as fact. While some of his ideas were plausible, I challenged the post on the grounds that it was eisegesis rather than exegesis. A reading into the text what seemed like a clever idea, rather than drawing out what the text actually said. The poster took offense to my comment and challenged my view. I then broke the text down and showed how some aspects were not only not supported by scripture, they were in fact in opposition to scripture. The poster responded with further offense and accused me of ‘nit picking’ rather than simply accepting things. My final response was that I broke things down and highlighted the errors because I take a high view of scripture. This experience highlighted the need to get at the reality behind the nice appearance.

My discernment process here was that I recognized the error in the post, even though I liked the idea presented, because it didn’t align with scripture. This is the fruit of exercising my spiritual senses and weighing what was being said against scripture.

An older example for me was reading a book in recent years by a popular leader from a popular movement. Something the author said didn’t sit right with me event though the book sounded good, felt good and was very popular. When I examined it in the light of scripture, I thought it plausible to draw the conclusion of the author but it still seemed at odds with the weight of scripture and the Lord’s heart. Something felt ‘off’ so I sat with it and literally set the book on a shelf. This was a few years ago. Then in the past year or so I listened to a podcast by some pastors I deeply respect. They were discussing the book and highlighted the damage it was causing in the body of Christ. They touched on what I had seen and other areas where the book was fostering the very types of sin being exposed in recent weeks. At this point I took the book off my shelf and threw it out.             In both examples above my discernment was rooted in two things, a knowledge of the scriptures and an awareness or sense in my sprit of something being off, not sitting quite right. I then took the time to further examine what seemed off to discern where the error actually lay. This is the process of deepening our discernment. The Spirt will bring passages to mind to lead us into truth and will quicken things in our spirit that we need to pay attention to if we have developed the habit of listening to His voice. So, the two obvious levels of discernment are knowing and paying attention to the scriptures and knowing and paying attention to His voice. I encourage you to develop the habit, the practice of walking this way. It guards His body, can save us a lot of heartache, and is what He calls us to walk in, discernment.