Day 21: Discerning of Spirits: The human spirit – Part 1

Everything has its genesis in the spiritual realm. The material world is a manifestation of what has already been created spiritually and that is why we need to understand not only the spiritual realm but spirits too. You need to understand spirits because spiritual events do not just happen spontaneously, there are spiritual agents behind every spiritual event. This understanding of spirits, knowledge of spirits, or the ability to distinguish spirits, is what is popularly known as discernment or discerning of spirits.

I believe the order in which you study spirits is important. I have discovered that the popular way of starting with demonic spirits is rudimentary and often leads to an unhealthy hypersensitivity towards demonic spirits or evil spirits in general. This is often at the expense of understanding other kinds of more important spirits that are divine in their essence, hence I want to start with studying the human spirit. In this article, I will lay a foundation of discerning human spirits, by firstly looking at the composition of a human being and the mystery of the nature of knowledge.

At the risk of repeating this information to those who have been following my series, please allow me to start by explaining the triune nature of human beings. In the beginning, God had two elements at His disposal to create a man. He had the dust of the ground through which He made the body and His breath of life. The bible paints a picture that God subsequently breathed into man and when this spirit came into contact with the body a third intermediary element came about, which we now call the soul. Hence “man became a living soul” Genesis 2:7

The spirit was the actual man, the soul was the intermediary through which the man could interact with the body, and the body was the entity through which the man could interact with the garden entities. Each of these human elements had senses through which they could know things. The spirit had senses, the soul had its senses and the body had its senses, perhaps the most obvious of all senses because we can see them. All of these can be thought of as transmitters of information. From the spiritual, to the soul and then to the body and back.

The way in which you know whether it is night or day is through the senses of your body, primarily the eyes, which discern the amount of light from the sun. But internally, your soul has its senses which are not so obvious which can discern time (sometimes attributed to your biology as your internal biological clock), and I want to submit also that your spirit has a way of telling time. And how your spirit tells time does not rely on the senses of your body, nor your soul but its senses. It is an understanding of time like that which the Sons of Issachar had “men [who] understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take.” 1 Chro 12:32. I want to bring you to this understanding from the onset that there are different entity levels through which we can gain information and thus different levels at which we can KNOW (or discern).

There is knowledge at a level of the material, things we know at the level of the soul and then those we know in our spirit. There is information that is imprinted in your brain, like telling your heart muscles to contract and relax or your eyes to blink. Things that you know and discern in your soul, consciously or subconsciously, such as emotions. That you are happy, you love something or someone. Similarly, things that are at a level of logic and reasoning, or knowing that a situation is stressful. And ultimately there are things you can know through your spirit, which I call your real KNOWER, which we will look at a bit more in-depth. But before that let us look at knowledge and knowing.

The bible and many other spiritual denominations often speak of knowledge as light. The apostle, for example, says “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Cor 4:6. He talks about how God shined the light out of the darkness. I want us to look at this metaphor of light as knowledge because it reveals a lot about the kinds of knowledge. It tells us there was a kind of light hidden in darkness, this light shined on our hearts and only then did God torch the Sun and then He illuminated the moon. See that!? Please follow me carefully as I review this powerful revelation and make it practical.

Whilst you were in darkness as a fetus, there was a kind of light that was shining in there. The same type of light that enabled you to suckle without any tutor. That light which shined in that darkness eventually enabled you to cry when you were hungry or had a discomfort without anyone teaching you how to cry. Where did that light go!? Perhaps you are also unfortunate like many of us, whom the Sun and the Moon’s light in the form of education systems then wiped all of that knowledge away from you. Can you think of what knowledge you were born with that the education system took away from you?

My biological dad is a great fine artist. As early as I can remember when I saw him draw I also began drawing. He never sat me down for a lesson. In fact, those who know me, know that I grew up mostly without my dad. It just came naturally to me. But why am I not a career artist today? Is there a reason why Billionaires abandon mainstream education systems just before they become Billionaires and go on to create education paradigms for their kids that are far removed from mainstream education systems? I am asking YOU as a spirit. Where did YOUR light that shined in your beginning darkness go? Just a thought, may God help us!

Before some of you start thinking perhaps this is some weird new-age knowledge, let me call upon this ancient knowledge recorded by Prophet Moses in Genesis 1:1-7 so that we can look at the order of creation. On day 1 God said let there be light, and that light separated the darkness from light. On day 2 atmospheres are created and divided from oceans. On day 3 God created plants and all vegetation and they managed to grow, sustained by the light created on day 1. It was only on day 4 when God torched up the Sun, Moon, and the stars. I hope you can see and appreciate that before this light called the sun, there was an even greater light that sustained life. John speaks of this life-giving light which was in the beginning and says he was merely making an announcement about this light, but he was not this light. He was preaching because “The true Light who gives light to every man was coming into the world.” John 1:9.  There is power in unorganised knowledge a.k.a. indigenous knowledge (I will call this the moons and the stars), there is power in organised knowledge a.k.a. sciences (I will call these the sun), but there is a greater power in spiritual knowledge and in the knowledge of Christ (I will call this the light before the light).

In comparison to spiritual knowledge, science is reduced to documented ignorance. The apostle says to the Corinthians “For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” 1 Corinthians 1:19-20. Up to so far, I hope I have developed in you an awareness that in order to understand human beings we cannot rely on science alone. It is the lowest form of light we can shine upon a person to truly discover who they are because people are spirits. And since human beings are spirits, to understand them you need to understand the spirit behind their actions and be able to distinguish between those spirits.

We can conclude by saying the highest form of discernment is spiritual discernment. But since your spirit controls your body through the mediation of the soul. We will also look at the role of your soul and body in spiritual discernment.

I now feel a bit more comfortable with the foundation I have laid. I have barely scratched the surface in discerning human spirits. Let us meet in the next article! I really appreciate you for taking the time to interrogate my introductory thoughts on discerning of human spirits. Love and Light to you!