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Solomon was one of the greatest leaders of his time to grace the earth. The edge he bought to his leadership resulted from a request he made of God,

“So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” (1 Kings 3:9)

Discernment and especially discerning spiritual atmospheres is key to Transformational Supernatural Leadership.

We are alive because God speaks. Everything about us is designed to hear God. It’s our nature. When we hear God, we practice discernment. When we practice discernment, we are using our spiritual authority to govern what atmosphere will influence us and those around us.

Atmospheres are real. They are a surrounding influence, mood or environment created by the human spirit and spiritual beings – divine or demonic. We are to govern atmospheres not have them govern us. This is part of our responsibility as followers of Jesus.

Discernment was a key feature of the leadership of Jesus. There was a moment just prior to His launch into 3 years of ministry where Jesus had a short dialogue with Satan.

Satan’s conversation with Jesus God incarnate, is the same conversation he has with us.  “Who do you think you are? If you are…?” (Matthew 4:1-10)

Leaders are not exempt from this kind of dialogue, they just refuse to let it govern them.

Jesus reply to Satan shows us just how differently leaders think. He says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’ (Matthew 4:4) That was it. 

Jesus wasn’t going to live by Satan’s word. He made it clear living was in the word that comes from God.

It’s in your design to discern that what you hear and perceive is His voice and to live and lead from it.

Have you ever been working away engrossed in a task late in the evening and suddenly you become aware of presence, you turn and there is your child? Your child spoke, their presence was their voice.

God’s presence is His voice. He speaks by presence. It’s the sensitivity that God is here and while we don’t know what He’s doing we will cooperate and catch what He’s on.

Comprehension is not the only evidence that we have heard, but our spirit detects something through our senses.

And this is the thing about discernment and why it is for some the illusive key ingredient in leadership, discernment primarily uses our senses. It is a sensory process before it is an intellectual one.

This was the one thing that Solomon identified as the key for him to lead and govern the great nation as King.

Discerning between right and wrong, between the human spirit and spiritual beings is key; perhaps even more so now than ever for our lives and leadership.

^“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  Ephesians 6:12

Prayer:

Father God thank you for the gift of discernment. Like Solomon, I ask for this gift and ask for you to increase it in my life and leading. Tune me, teach me to lean in and to honor when my senses detect your presence, your movement, your action, your voice and to cooperate with you no matter what. You are my great joy. I am alive because you speak!