A friend and business mentor of mine once said to me, “Ron, your brain is for thinking. You must not waste it by turning it into a simple feedback device for regurgitating the latest information fed into it.” That advice was passed along many years ago, but every year since then has reinforced the wisdom it conveys. Our hyper-digitized culture has reduced us to ‘information gluttons”. Every day, we line up at our favorite audio-visual feeding troughs and voraciously gobble up every tempting morsel our assortment of “glowing rectangles” (as one of our pastors calls our digital devices) can whip up and dish out. 

Identifying the Problem ~
But I should also be quick to affirm that I’m not necessarily against electronic communication and wish that, if anything, the vast store of information available to us was able to flow more freely than it is. But as we’re seeing every day, the political puppet-masters, word police and propaganda strategists work tirelessly to control what we see and hear and to restrict any information that challenges their agenda. The volume of information isn’t, in and of itself, the problem. The problem is how we handle it. It’s what the information means and what we do or don’t do with it that matters. When we look at the ideas being embraced and behaviors being practiced by so many self-described Christians we can’t help but ask, “What are they thinking?” The answer is, “Maybe they’re not thinking at all.” 

When it comes to information in this culture, we’ve become gluttons. The All-You-Can-Eat Info Buffet is open 24/7, and we’re like morbidly obese people determined to get to our place at the table for another meal. No matter what our personal tastes are, we can find our favorite recipes served up fresh every day and prepared just the way we like them. But when it comes to discernment, i.e. understanding what the information being thrown at us really means and what we should do about it, it’s another matter altogether. In that regard, we look more like we’re severely anorexic. 

A Sobering Revelation ~
Sometimes, when unanticipated incidents or events emerge, we hear comments like, “Well… I didn’t see that coming.” That admission usually follows things that are relatively insignificant, but sometimes, it can be a sobering indictment that highlights what a lack of discernment can cost. For instance, I heard an interview recently involving the author of a book on the two world wars that ravaged this planet during the last century. In that exchange the historian said, “It took the deaths of 65 million people to tell us things we ought to have already known.” 

To say the least, a lack of discernment is not a minor issue. It’s a form of situational blindness that can be an open invitation for potential threats to our welfare to be developed under our very noses, as it were, and prevent us from taking action to protect ourselves. A lack of discernment certainly aroused Jesus’ attention, on more than one occasion, and as Luke recorded, His reaction could be both sharp and sobering. 

Then He [Jesus] also said to the multitudes,“Whenever you see a cloud rising out of the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming’; and so it is. And when you see the south wind blow, you say, ‘There will be hot weather’; and there is. Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time? (Luke 12:54–56 NKJV)

It was obviously disturbing to the Lord that so many purportedly intelligent people could be so confident in their ability to use their observational skills to predict the local weather, yet be totally unaware of who He was and what His presence represented. Many of them were confident that their knowledge of the Torah, the prophets, and their Rabbinical instruction was all they needed. But in spite of the prophecies God had given regarding the kind of Messiah that He would send and Jesus’ obvious fulfillment of every one of them, they had no spiritual discernment and could not see who He was. 

Taking A More Positive Approach ~
The Apostle Paul also addressed the issue, but did it in a more positive and encouraging tone. In his divinely inspired epistle to the beloved church at Philippi, Paul included a uniquely worded prayer. He began by asking God to increase their love. He wanted their love for Jesus and one another to be like a cup running over because when knowledge was blended with love like that, it produced discernment that would result in producing incredible benefits. 

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9–11 NKJV)

His prayer for them was not just that they might glean more information, i.e. knowledge, about Jesus. Paul’s desire was that their love for Him and one another would be like a cup running over and that it would be characterized by discernment and demonstrated in how they applied it. As they put their knowledge into practice, priceless benefits would come their way. For example:

• • • They would be drawn to and associated with things that are excellent, and able to avoid being fooled by the world’s seductive imitations.  
    • Discernment would promote a genuineness that would protect them from sinful self-deception and from becoming a spiritual stumbling block to others. 
    • The discernment Paul prayed for would also lead them to a life filled with the enduring fruit that comes from making choices rooted in the righteousness of God.  

One of the deceptive myths we need to abandon in our day is that the key to discernment is the acquisition of more data. We tend to believe that if we just accumulate all the information available about anything, then that facilitates making the right choices. If that were true, how then do we explain that with untold numbers of studies, countless volumes of research, and books on every aspect of love, marriage, and family relationships, the number of intact traditional families in this country continues to decline? We’re sitting on a mountain of sociological and psychological information about how to make childhood development positive and successful, yet divisive hatred, sexual perversion, drugs, crime, and mental health issues are consuming our younger generations. Peace and safety have become nostalgic relics of days gone by in many of our nation’s cities, and the billions of bits of data we have only seem capable of highlighting the problems, but totally incompetent when it comes to solving them.  

A Quality Akin to Wisdom ~
Our role as followers of Jesus is not to seek to escape from evil by retreating into our closets and avoiding exposure to challenging information altogether. When it comes to discernment, ignorance is not an asset, but neither is being drawn into the mental and emotional gauntlets and social media spider webs awaiting us every day. The discernment we desperately need is a quality akin to wisdom. As such it has a foundational connection to our personal interaction with the One who embodies it and the Spirit who transmits it. 

God has provided an access to the spiritual discernment needed to cleanse our nation from the hate and violence consuming us, but it won’t be achieved by gathering more information, not even if it’s information about Jesus. The power to confront and overcome evil is not found in simply knowing what He said. It’s in doing what He said. Information alone will never equal discernment – but obedience to Him and His Word always does.

“TWEETABLES” ~ Click to Tweet & Share from the pull quotes below. Each quote links directly to this article through Twitter.

• • • “A lack of discernment is not a minor issue. It’s a form of situational blindness that can be an open invitation for potential threats to our welfare to be developed under our very noses, as it were, and prevent us from taking action to protect ourselves.” @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)    
    • “Peace and safety have become nostalgic relics of days gone by in many of our nation’s cities, and the billions of bits of data we have only seem capable of highlighting the problems, but totally incompetent when it comes to solving them.” @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet) 
    • “The discernment we desperately need to keep us from mental and emotional gauntlets and social media spider webs is a quality akin to wisdom. Wisdom has a foundational connection to our personal interaction with the One who embodies it and the Spirit who transmits it.” @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet) 
    • “God has provided an access to spiritual discernment. The power to confront and overcome evil is not found in simply knowing what He said. It’s in doing what He said. Information alone will never equal discernment – but obedience to Him and His Word always does.” @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)  

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