Discernment is a by-product of being born from above through the Holy Spirit cultivated through a deep knowledge of the Word of God and a daily surrender and obedience to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.⁸¹ Jesus said in the Gospel of John,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one receives birth¹¹⁰ of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which receives birth¹¹⁰ from the flesh is flesh, and that which receives birth¹¹⁰ from the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must receive birth¹¹⁰ from above¹¹¹.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who receives birth¹¹⁰ from the Spirit." (Jn 3:5-8).

The soulish man cannot discern truth in a situation because when it comes to relationship to self, man, and God, these are subjective issues; that is, issues centered in man’s mind and heart, his soul, and in his spirit. The Bible plainly says that only the Holy Spirit knows the thoughts of man and the thoughts of God.⁵⁴ Because the soulish man has no means of communication with God through his dead human spirit, he can never know the true heart of a problem and thus truly discern a situation.

When a soulish man reads the Bible, he receives condemnation because he is reading it with his soulish mind. He is not able to see God’s love, forgiveness, and plan for his life in the Scriptures because this kind of understanding and discernment only comes through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through man’s regenerated human spirit which he does not have.¹¹² This is why Evangelism is so important because a Christian does have the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and is able to show God’s love and forgiveness in Jesus’ Word.

Life does not come through reading the Bible alone. Life comes through entering into relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus then causes the Bible to become alive to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit through our spirit as it is relevant to the need of the moment.¹¹³

About the Spiritual man Paul states,

"But he who is motivated and controlled through his spirit¹¹⁴ discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned¹¹⁵ by no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor 2:15-16).

The spiritual man discerns the truth about all situations and needs because he does not judge things as they appear outwardly.⁶⁵ He goes to Jesus about all things through worship and praise in Spirit and truth, and gains Jesus’ evaluation about all things through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.⁶⁰ He does this because he is aware of the complexity of man’s constitution and his complete and total dependence on Jesus for everything. He takes Jesus’ admonition about being as a little child to enter into the kingdom of God literally.⁵⁷ He puts no trust in himself or in man about anything, but only trusts in Jesus in the light of His Word.⁵⁸

Everything that he does, whether vocationally, marriage wise, or ministry wise, is motivated out of the prayer,

Jesus, in what vocation, relationship with the opposite sex, and ministry can I best glorify Your name, usher in Your kingdom, andccomplish Your will on earth as it is in heaven, and bring the most people, or people that you want me to, into a saving knowledge of who You are?⁵⁹

This is the attitude of his heart daily in all that he does, says and pursues.

Because the spiritual man does not act out of his own initiative in anything that he pursues, whether spiritual, practical, or ministerial pursuits, he succeeds in all he does, meaning by the definition of success by God’s standards. This is because Jesus promises His provision when we obey His personal dictates to our lives through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.⁶⁰ Some times when we are a success in the Lord’s eyes, we are a failure in the worlds eyes. In the world’s eyes Jesus was a total failure at the end of his life: His apostles deserted him and he died alone on a cross a humiliating death. But was Jesus a failure?

Because the Spiritual man obeys Jesus through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, he experiences the by-product of obedience which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.⁶¹

The spiritual man is completely at rest in Jesus. He is completely at rest because he never allows fear to be a motivating factor in his life but trusts totally in Jesus’ promise: "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." (John 14:18).⁶⁰

FLESHLY MAN

About the fleshly man Paul says,

"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to men motivated and controlled through your spirit, but as to men motivated and controlled through your flesh¹¹⁶, as to babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still motivated and controlled through the flesh. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not motivated and controlled through the flesh, and are you not walking like mere men?" (1 Cor 3:1-3)

The word in the Greek for flesh here is sarkikov"¹¹⁶ (sarkikos). Sarkikos means literally to be motivated and controlled by the appetites and desires of the body, the flesh. This is what the Bible means by being fleshly. It means that not only is man’s dead spirit sunk down into submission to the soul, but even the soul has yielded its sovereignty to the appetites and desires of the body so that God declares of man, "My Spirit shall not always strive¹¹⁷ with man; in their erring he is flesh" (Gen 6:3). A fleshly man can be a believer as well as a non-believer. For the sake of our discussion here, we will talk about the fleshly believer who has a relationship with God.

When we say fleshly man, we are talking about a born-again Christian who is motivated and controlled through his soul: his intellect and feelings; and through his flesh: his appetites and desires. By fleshly we mean self-dependence rather than Jesus dependence. These are Christians who are trying to live the Christian life out of their own strength and thoughts rather than relying on Jesus’ strength and Holy Spirit guidance.⁶² Sometimes this is out of ignorance, sometimes out of self-will.

Christians who rely on their own strength and thoughts live in frustration, confusion, and defeat. Their lives are not really much different from the life of the fleshly unbeliever except that they are more miserable because they are aware of what they can have in Jesus. They are more miserable because they have experienced God’s love, forgiveness and power over their sins and plan for their lives.

In most cases they live defeated lives because, first, they do not know how to appropriate and experience God’s love and forgiveness on a daily basis in spite of daily momentary defeats. No Christian walks in the Spirit perfectly twenty-four hours a day; but if a Christian does not know how to immediately appropriate God’s love and forgiveness when he becomes aware of sin in his life, Satan can keep him in an attitude of defeat for months. Once Satan has convinced a Christian in this position of how bad he is and because of his ignorance about how to draw upon Jesus’ power to overcome sin in his life, out of frustration he turns back to relying on the power of his flesh to try and solve his problems.

The only problem with this, however, is that our flesh is in bondage to sin. Therefore, when you rely on the power of your flesh to overcome your problem, you stimulate the soul and flesh. Since the soul and flesh are in bondage to sin already, to stimulate them is to also strengthen their power to sin. The end result is that for a moment the Christian seems to be making headway only in the end to find himself more in bondage to the problem he tried to overcome in his own strength in the first place. Concerning this Paul tells us in Romans 8:6-7,

"For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so."

Paul tells us plainly that the flesh cannot make itself submit to God’s law. Trying to do so only empowers it to sin all the more so that the apostle Paul cries out, Paul tells us plainly that the flesh cannot make itself submit to God’s law. Trying to do so only empowers it to sin all the more so that the apostle Paul cries out, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" (Rom 7:24).

There is no one more miserable in the world than a Christian who finds himself caught up in this kind of cycle of trying to live the Christian life in the power of the flesh. It destroys his freedom in Christ and his ability to experience the fruit of the Holy Spirit in his life. The fleshly Christian finds himself unable to really trust God. This is why he is frustrated and striving. He is a very self-righteous person because the appearance of spirituality in his life is self-produced, not Holy Spirit attained. As a result he is intolerant of Christians who do not live up to his self-made standards of spirituality and even looks down upon them with a critical judgmental spirit.

The Christian life is a supernatural life. No Christian can live it in the power of the flesh. This is why Paul writes in Ephesians 6:10, "Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might." This is the secret to victorious Christian living, learning how to draw upon Jesus’ strength and power to live it. Appropriating Jesus’ strength and power is all wrapped up in what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to walk in the Holy Spirit and what it means to be Baptized with the Holy Spirit as related to ministry outreach and release.

What basically does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Does it mean that the Holy Spirit comes in doses, or is this a figure of speech? When a person receives Jesus into His life as Savior and Lord, he is at that moment filled with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, then, simply means that Jesus is Lord of your life.