Discernment of Gifts
The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are.

Wisdom: Divine perspective on how to apply knowledge.
Knowledge: Supernatural insight into facts.
Discerning of Spirits: Perceiving the influence of spirits.
Faith: Exceptional trust in God for special circumstances.
Healings: Divine intervention for physical/emotional restoration.
Miracles: Supernatural acts beyond natural capability.
Prophecy: Speaking forth God’s message.
Tongues: Speaking in unknown languages.
Interpretation of Tongues: Explaining tongues for the body of the Church.

Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2-3): Traditional Catholic theology highlights these gifts for personal sanctification:             Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel (Right Judgment), Fortitude (Courage), Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.  Service/Leadership Gifts (Romans 12, Ephesians 4): These are often viewed as ministry functions to strengthen the church: Teaching, Administration, Encouragement (Exhortation), Giving, Leadership, Serving, Mercy, Apostleship, and Evangelism.
The Holy Spirit distributes these gifts according to His will to benefit the community. They are also distributed based on Gods plan for your life.

So what is Discernment?

Discernment is a way of listening, a judgment, a feeling, a thought, an idea, a pattern, a decision. To discern something is to take apart, to dissect, to make a proper judgment based on what is placed before you. Spiritual Discernment is also listening for the Prompting of God through his Holy Spirit, Jesus said my Sheep know my voice, to discern the voice of the Lord takes practice and plenty of listening and meditating and using his word to confirm when he is speaking to you. In fact one of the best ways to discern the Lords voice is reading and praying his word and you will find that at times it will touch your heart in ways you could not imagine. Try it.

Discernment Part one    God created you to live on purpose, for a purpose!                             God has a Plan for your life? So what is God’s plan for your life?
Jeremiah 29 :11 for I know the plans I have for you, plans to build you up not break you down. Plans to help you prosper.
So do you know the plans God has for you? Have you truly search out Gods plan for your life?  The first plan is for you to come to know and love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.
Mathew 6:33 Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you. The first gift God wants to give you is the gift of revelation of who God is, and, how do you get that revelation?, it comes from The Holy Spirit. Revelation brings Transformation.
Have you truly set free the Holy Spirit in your life? Many of us say we have but have you truly given over control of your life to the Holy Spirit and his prompting? “Surrendering completely to the Holy Spirit in your life is the ultimate goal ”, Do you pray for the Power and fulfilment of the Holy Spirit in your life everyday? “Jesus said wait here until you receive power from above”. Every morning pray for The Holy Spirit to fill you empower your day.

The following outlines are ideas on how to learn to Discern the voice of the Holy Spirit. Both for yourself And praying with people

Protect your thoughts

When trying to listen to the voice of the Lord you need silence both outside of the body, but also inside the mind and the heart. We need to silence the enemy and the distractions around us, we need a protection prayer/s  
Protection prayer: Ask the Lord to silence all distraction and thoughts sent by the enemy. Say St Michael’s prayer or short protection prayers of your own choosing. Take Authority over any thoughts and command them to go to the foot of the cross and ask Jesus to protect your mind from outside influences. Also ask the Lord to silence the enemy while you are discerning his voice and he will.            Discerning the voice of the Holy Spirit: Remember his voice is very gentle and not pushy, controlling or demanding.

So we are going to Pray for a renewed filling of the Holy Spirit, in ourselves but also in our Prayer Partner

When praying with people,  

Use a protection prayer when praying with people, you can of course use your own, here is the one I use

Lord I ask for your protection on my life right now,  let nothing from me enter into this person and nothing from this person enter into me.. protect my mind and  soul from all spiritual interference. Protect my mind from all outside influences from the enemy. I ask you pure Holy Spirit for the Gift of prayer and revelation of what you like to say to me or this person. In Jesus name I pray, Amen

Always ask the Lord for protection, never jump straight into praying with anyone. St Paul reminds us be slow to lay hands on anyone.. Before you place your hands on anyone, Listen…. to the Holy Spirit, he may prompt you not to place your hand on a person- just to hold your hand up. Again Listen, he will give you a word of wisdom or knowledge or a feeling, Listen to the prompting he places in your mind, heart or soul .
Always ask the person can you place your hand on them and then place your hand on the arm or the shoulder. Avoid all other contact, especially if you’re a male. If you ever feel it’s the heart that needs prayer then ask the person to place their hand on their heart and you place your hand on their shoulder. The Lords power can reach them.

A Prayer to say with the Person.
Come Holy Spirit fill this person a new with your beautiful presence. Amen, or use your own words from your heart.

Prayer Leader prays silently — Come Holy Spirit give me the right prayer to say with this person right now. Direct guide and enlighten me Holy Spirit to speak to this person with words of encouragement and enlightenment and revelation in Jesus’s name I pray amen. Now listen to what comes from the Holy Spirit, Remember if nothing comes than its possible the Lord has nothing to say. You have prayed and leave it there. The most dangerous thing you can do is to pray too hard and try to get a word and end up creating a word in your head for them. Don’t do this

How did you find that exercise?
Too much, loved it, it felt right, not something I’d like to do again.
Remember how it felt, that is the start of discerning your gifts.

Second part: Gods plan.  Discerning Gods plan for your life as we said earlier do you know them or it?. Through the power of the Holy Spirit God will reveal them to you, maybe not today, but over time. Remember the first plan is to get you to know who God is and to get you on the road to salvation and to heaven. And that road is knowing who Jesus Christ is.
John 17 “Jesus looked up to heaven and said father the hour has come give glory to your son, so that the son may have glory in you. For you gave him authority over all humanity so that he might give eternal life to all those you gave him and eternal life means knowing you and the only true God and knowing Jesus Christ whom you have sent”.
That is your first port of call. Knowing and loving God the father and his son through the power of the Holy Spirit, nothing else matters everything else is secondary.

Second part: Praying with the person to get a revelation of God’s plan for their lives..
So if you get a word of knowledge or inspiration of what you feel God is calling them into, give it to them. If nothing comes pray that the lord will give them a vision for their lives..
St Paul reminds us the people Perish for lack of vision. What’s God’s plan for your life? Have you prayed and asked God for a vision or an understanding of his plan for your life?

With the plan comes the gifts:  God gives us gifts for the journey.
Going on a journey you need the right the clothes and transport etc. so God knows you need all these things and he will provide them. It’s important to know your journey and where it is your heading. “Jesus said Seek and you will find knock and the Door will be open to you. Would any of you give your son a snake when he asks for a fish, so much more will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask”.
So let’s pray for a vision for our lives
So in this exercise you are going to pray for a word of knowledge or wisdom for what the Lord has in store for this person.
Again your going to pray for the person to have a revelation of God’s plan for them and pray the Lord will give you an inspiration or a prompting of where they should be praying or going in their lives.
So again how did we find that?

3rd Discernment: Desire,  what is your desire?
Discernment of gifts do you have a desire to see God working in your life do you desire Gods best for your life? St Paul reminds us to Desire the Greater gifts especially the gift to proclaim Gods message….

There is two types of Desires, one, desire to see Gods church and people built up, Two desire of acknowledgement of whom you are. Discerning your desires or motivation is also a gift of discernment that we need. We all need to Discern if this is from God or us. I desire to be a healer or a great speaker. Desiring the gifts of the Holy Spirit must be for the enlightenment of who God is for his glory and the lives of others, Not the building up of your reputation. Pray every day for the gift to Discern the proper road for your life. You may never want to go into the field of public ministry and yet you need to Discern this that God could be calling you and it should not be dismissed. On the other side especially if you feel called to public ministry then you need to pray every day for the Holy Spirit to direct you motivates for doing this.

Fourth Discernment of Gifts.

We are now going to pray for the discernment of Gifts. We are going to pray like before asking the Holy Spirit to fill us with discernment of Gifts and prompting of what gifts this person or yourself may have.

So how are you going to do this? You are going to pray,  Come Holy Spirit fall afresh on me as I pray with this person and use me in what ever manner you see fit. If you can pray in tongues do that. If not, just keep praying, Come Holy Spirit for a few mins. Then listen…. Do you get a word of knowledge, an image or a vision, a feeling, a thought. What did you get?

If you got an image what did it say? How did you feel about the image?

Did you get a word of knowledge ie this person is….. or I see this person doing this.. did you feel called to pray for their health? Maybe a strange feeling as you prayed with them. There is many aspects to this and we don’t have time to cover all. I will expend on this more over the next few days here. Check the list on the top of the page and see which one you feel called to and pray and ask God and the Holy Spirit to confirm them in your life.

Remember never rush into using any gift, God will make away for you to use them you don’t need to push them God will manifest them at the right and probably when you least expect it.