Deal with your servant according to your love and teach me your decrees. I am your servant; give me discernment that I may understand your statutes. It is time for you to act, O LORD; your law is being broken. – Psalm 119:124-126
What Jesus’ Gift Brings. Discernment. This is a long Psalm and it broken into several sections. The overarching theme in this scripture is following the precepts of God. In this section titled “Ayin” there are eight verses. The writer states he has done what is right so do not leave him to those that would oppress him.
The writer states he is looking diligently for God’s salvation. The writer understands that as hard as his situation may be, there is only one place to find help and that is in the Lord. He says I am your servant so deal with me according to your love and teach me your decrees.
The writer says he needs discernment. He needs God to help him have the ability to judge what is right and what is wrong. He also understands that he needs the ability to be sensitive to spiritual things. Without the help of the Holy Spirit we cannot be sensitive to the workings of the Spirit. We cannot see clearly the tricks of the enemy without the ability to be sensitive to the Spirit. The ability to discern helps us to separate what is good from evil. We can detect the smallest things that would slip right past us in our own abilities.
With the ability to discern we are able to then understand God’s way. This is another way that the comforter helps us in our daily walk. He will tell us what is truth and then we are able to determine what is right before God. If Jesus had not come and opened this gift to us, we would not be able to understand or discern those things that are spiritual. We would not understand them because we would be lost in darkness. That is still true today. There are those that do not understand and are not able to discern the enemies hand in events in our world, their actions or their lives. They are not able to discern the source of these things because they are in darkness.
Those of us that are in the light understand the things of the light. Those in the darkness do not understand because they cannot be understood in the darkness. That is why we that are of the light do not always understand the foolishness of the actions of people. We are discerning the outcome of their actions, which they cannot see. This is then the place that we can rejoice in knowing God’s gift to us allows us to see clearly the affects of good and evil. So today, let us thank God for his gift of discernment. Let us also pray for those we see that are making decisions in the dark. Seek God to open their eyes to the light so that they can move from darkness to light and receive the ability to discern what is right in the eyesight of God.
