How to Sharpen Your Spiritual Discernment & See in the Spirit

David Diga Hernandez presents a critical teaching on cultivating spiritual discernment—the ability to see things through the Holy Spirit’s eyes—as a fundamental responsibility for every believer. In a world saturated with chaos, conflicting messages, and diverse opinions across all media and communication formats, believers must learn to discern what God is saying.

The ministry’s focus is on helping believers find their footing in confusing times, emphasizing that every decision must ultimately be based on the Word of God.

I. The Essential Dynamic: Word and Spirit

To sharpen spiritual discernment and “see into the spirit,” believers must first understand how the Word and the Spirit work together.

The Foundation of Creation

The dynamic between the Word and the Spirit is established from the beginning of creation (Genesis 1:1-3): God spoke (“Let there be light”), and the Spirit of God was “hovering over the surface of the waters”.

• Incubation and Substance: The Hebrew word for “hovered” suggests fluttered or brooded, like a bird incubating its eggs. The Holy Spirit incubates the Word. The Holy Spirit always moves through the Word; the Word is the foundation and the substance with which the Holy Spirit creates.
• Balance is Crucial: It is an imbalance to celebrate power demonstrations without first being grounded in the Word. Such a practice risks presenting “charismatic witchcraft” rather than the gospel. The notion that the less of the Word there is, the more the Holy Spirit moves, must be broken.
• Transformation: Emotional experiences or the touch of God’s power on the physical being are insufficient without the Word. Transformation comes when the Spirit breathes on the Word already received and known. For instance, Saul, who knew the law (the Word) but not the Spirit, only achieved transformation when the Spirit breathed on the Word within him.
• Magnifying Jesus: When Jesus is magnified, the power of the Holy Spirit is intensified. Since Jesus is the Word (John 6), declaring the Word is declaring the substance of Christ.

Detecting Deception and False Doctrine

False doctrines are often heavily based on the Word, but they are twisted because they lack the Spirit.

• Cult leaders, often knowing the Word better than some pastors, twist scripture by aligning with its authority but inserting a little bit of deception (compared to rat poison).
• Conversely, false signs originate from a false spirit but lack the basis of the Word.
• Therefore, both the Word and the Spirit are crucial for true power and biblical balance.

II. Submitting to the Final Authority of God’s Word

The second key to discernment is to know and submit to the authority of God’s Word.

• Finality and Foundation: All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, correcting, and equipping believers for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The Word is the finality; there is no higher authority than the Word of God.
• Correction and Formation: Believers must ask: “When was the last time the word of God corrected something I believed?“. If the Word always agrees with a believer, they are likely forcing their beliefs into the Word rather than allowing the Word to form their beliefs.
• True Freedom: The Word creates boundaries. True freedom is found within the boundaries of scripture. Trying to throw off all restraints in the name of freedom is misguided.
• Reverence and Rebellion: There is a concerning word deficiency in the current generation, often replacing study of the Word with social media, quotes, or media binging. Movements like the “deconstruction movement” attempt to rethink what is believed about the Word and make it “more palatable for the worldly culture” that rages against the truth.
• Word as Thermometer: Believers should use the Word as a thermometer (measuring spiritual temperature) and not a thermostat (changing to adjust for comfort). We should use the Word to learn, not to write.
• Building on Bedrock: Jesus taught that anyone who hears His teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock (bedrock). Anyone who disobeys is foolish, building on sand, and will collapse with a mighty crash. We must humbly bow before the Word, allowing anything in us that contradicts it to submit to its authority.

III. Discerning How the Holy Spirit Speaks

The third key to sharpening discernment is understanding how the Holy Spirit speaks. This requires walking a fine line: seeing through the lens of scripture and then walking by the leading of the Spirit.

The Word of God divides between the soul (emotions, intellect, preferences) and the spirit (innermost thoughts and intents), exposing deception. Relying on the ability to hear, rather than the Spirit’s ability to speak, leads to restlessness and torment.

The Holy Spirit speaks in four primary ways, in order of reliability:

1. The Word (Primary and Most Reliable)

The Word is the most accurate and reliable way to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and is the more sure word of prophecy. It is the most clear way God speaks.

2. Wisdom (Inner Knowing)

After the Word, the Holy Spirit speaks through wisdom—an inner guiding that helps navigate the day-to-day operations of life (marriage, business, etc.). This wisdom is not a specific clear instruction on every detail. If life is rooted in the Word, wisdom will follow.

3. The Whisper (Specific Instruction)

The whisper is the means by which the Holy Spirit gives specific instruction that may not be directly found in scripture or obvious wisdom.

• Interference: The whisper is the most difficult to navigate because it is interfered with by a person’s emotions and thoughts.
• Application: While important, trying to live primarily by the whisper leads to legalism, confusion, and mental anguish. It should be used to guide minor, specific decisions, like a husband realizing he hurt his wife’s feelings, which was neither a biblical command nor common wisdom, but a specific relational instruction.

4. Wonders (Prophets, Dreams, Visions)

The final way the Spirit speaks is through wonders (prophets, visions, dreams, signs).

• Secondary Reliance: Believers should not base their whole lives on a prophetic word. The purpose of prophecy is to confirm and encourage, but the Word remains the foundation.

IV. Discerning the Spirit, the Satanic, and the Secular

Once a believer knows how the Holy Spirit speaks, they can categorize any idea or occurrence into one of three areas: the spirit, the satanic, or the secular.

• Spirit: Easy to discern; it aligns with the Word.
• Satanic: Contradicts the Word.
• Secular: Difficult to navigate, often falling into “gray areas”. This is where most believers are lost—to distractions like social media and entertainment, not devil worship.

Fleshly Judgment vs. True Discernment

A significant danger is mistaking personal discomfort, preferences, or skepticism for the voice of the Holy Spirit (calling it “sitting right with my spirit”). This often leads to criticizing and dismissing other anointed servants of God.

True discernment requires:

1. Setting aside preferences.
2. Exchanging political ideology or preferred lenses for the lens of the Word.
3. Judging with righteous judgment, with the Word, by the Spirit.

The gift of discernment is not the gift of criticism or complaint. Groundedness in the Word keeps believers in unity, saves their sanity, and prevents wandering into bizarre doctrines.