Discernment is the intuitive and cognitive supernatural ability to sense and identify spirits. It is a gift used for divine purpose. It works only when activated by God at a partiular time and space.
In 1991 in the YWAM Crossroads Discipleship Training School in Singapore, Dan Sneed was one of our school guest lecturers. On his 5th day of lecture, he gave a few personal prophecies. He prophesied to me and Zeny that we will go back to the Philippines and minister in worship and spiritual warfare in various places, moving with the cloud.
After 3 months, we went back to the Philippines and served at YWAM NCR base. It was at this time that YWAM was spearheading several prayer gatherings of local churches from various denominations. For me, these gatherings of intercessors were divine appointments for divine connections.
But after several months, God moved us out of YWAM.
He connected us to ministers of different denominations in the Body of Christ, teaching how to hear God’s voice.
Their churches were the battlegrounds.
In trenches God marched me through, He taught me how to decode the dynamics of prophetic discernment using my 5 spiritual sensors. But first and foremost is learning to hear His voice in various situations.
My First Time to Discern
While a friend and I were sitting in his living room having a wonderful time chatting, his daughter in high school arrived. After she greeted us and had walked away, I told my friend that his daughter is having issues and is hurting.
How did I know that?
I had no prior knowledge of his daughter’s issues. It must be God. He activated me with the ability to discern. The revelation was quick. It happened instantly.
Discernment By Feelings
How did I discern it?
When the daughter approached us, I, suddenly, felt pain in my heart. Then I heard God say in my mind that she is hurting.
My first time to discern this way.
My friend was a bit surprised by what I said. Quickly he asked his daughter. The mood in the room changed. I felt heaven open with divine love and grace making her break into tears and confess. That every time she is nagged about her boyfriend, she gets hurt. She feels untrustworthy. She resents it.
My friend hugged her and humbly asked his daughter to forgive him. Likewise, his daughter asked for his forgiveness. Then I prayed for them.
From this experience, I have learned to decode a spiritual pain on my heart as an alarm or signal, indicating that a heart is wounded and is hurting. The moment the wounded emotion is healed through forgiveness, the phantom pain in my heart disappears.
Discernment By Seeing
While praying for them, the Lord opened my spiritual eyes to see in the spirit a vision. I saw her running barefoot, and a little black snake slithered after her and bit her heel. Quickly and briefly, the Lord gave me the meaning of that vision. The black snake that bit her is a demon. Its’ venom is lust. Lust is crouching at her feet.
Discreetly, I shared with her father, the vision and its’ meaning.
Discernment By Hearing
Though God conveys His messages through various means, it is crucial that we discern His voice when He speaks.
He reveals Himself. That is absolute, but how can we be sure it is He speaking?
He spoke to me even when I had not known Him biblically and intimately as my God.
In one of my bitter moments as a young teen, I was emotionally hurting and contemplating the plan of leaving home when I heard a voice in my mind. I was not aware of who was speaking, but that voice engaged me in a mind talk, enlightening me to discard my bad plan, which I did. In hindsight, after several years, I realized that that voice was God’s.
It is God who chooses to speak. And He chooses the place and time to speak.
In Jeremiah 18:1-2, God said to Jeremiah, “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.”
Putting God in a box
With 5 little children happily playing and making noises at home, I wished I could pray and meditate in a quiet place. So I planned to go to the prayer mountain in Antipolo.
But God said no. Pray at home.
The Lord was rebooting my mindset: that having a quiet place to hear God’s voice is putting Him in a box.
Lesson learned: Hearing His voice in the midst of a loud noise is as clear as hearing His voice in a quiet place.
What Pleases God
It is not what I want to do for God that pleases Him; it is what He wants me to do
I thought it pleases God to spend time alone with Him in prayer. So after breakfast, I asked my wife if she could wash the dishes for me. She obliged. After closing the bedroom door behind me, God said, ” You wash the dishes.” His voice was audible. I heard it clearly. So I didn’t hesitate. I immediately obeyed.
A few days earlier, I had a talk with the school principal of Corpus Christi. To raise funds for the computer class, she was thinking of holding a fundraising event. She mentioned that a group of parents, professional artists in the music and theater arts, offered to perform for free. Being the president of the parents-teahers fellowship, she asked me to pray about it.
While washing the dishes, God told me to proeed with the event.
The fundraising event was well attended. The school auditorium was full. The atmosphere was festive. People were excited that the featured musicians and the theatre artists performing there are famous in the Philippines entertainment world.
At the end the event, the school principal asked me to give a short talk then pray for the offering.
Before I could respond, I heard the Lord say “Don’t pass the offering bags.” I echoed the Lord’s instruction to the principal. She nodded.
I gave the short talk. Told the audience the purpose of raising funds for computers. But no offering bags to be passed around; instead, donations would be received at the school office.
Then I prayed, thanking the Lord and thanking the artists and everyone there. The event ended as God instructed.
The following days after the concert, checks started pouring in. The donations received were enough to procure 4 desktop computers.
God’s Voice
Hearing God’s voice takes us to the next level. It unlocks our faith to walk unafraid on water. It also prevents us from presuming God’s will. In life, the struggle is not always on choosing between good and evil; it is making the divine choice among the many good options to choose from.
When my son was preparing to take the entrance test to the college of medicine, he thought of taking the entrance exams to the 5 prestgious schools of medicine in the Philippines: UP, UST, Ateneo, FEU, and UE. But before deciding, he came to me for advice. I told him to pray and hear from God, advising him to take only the entrance exam of the school the Lord has chosen for him.
After praying, he came back and told me that God chose UP for him. I told him to go for it. Then he asked further if he should join a review class or review alone. I told him to pray and ask God. He did. When he came back to me, he told me that God told him to review alone.
By hearing the voice of God and obeying His word, my son made it to the UP College and Medicine in Manila. There, he graduated with a doctorate degree in medicine.
There are teachings on how to hear God’s voice. I went through them. When Zeny and I took the 1986 DTS in YWAM Quezon City, hearing God’s voice was a major subject.
Though in 1982, I have been hearing God speak to me in dreams, visions, and thoughts in my mind. They were divine enounters aligning me to God’s call and purpose in my life.
We attended ACCF, a full-gospel charismatic church. Alive with praise and worship, I felt the Presence of God there. Exhortation and the gift of speaking in tongues were practiced. Preaching and biblical teaching mainly covered God’s written word. But hearing God’s voice? We were not taught how to do it. To get divine guidance, we were often told to read, study, and meditate on the written word of God from the Bible.
In all the years that God enabled me to hear His voice, He made me realize that it is not because of my understanding and wisdom on how to hear God’s voice that I am able to hear Him. Anyone can hear Him. Balaam did. He was a pagan soothsayer hired to curse Israel. But God spoke to him. Deut.22-24
God speaks to us not because of who we are but because of Who He is.
Discernment By Smelling
A scent could be a supernatural alarm that something is going to happen or a signal revealing an existing issue or problem.
In culmination of the Spiritual Warfare and Intercession Institute held in 5 days of incubation, a love feast was held. After the graduates were given their certificates of attendance, we went home.
Upon arrival, my wife and I unpacked our things. We brought with us some flowers used in decorating the love feast venue. Then a smell of death filled the air. It was an intensely putrid odor. The atmosphere suddenly became depressing and heavy. Then we noticed the flowers brought from the love feast. They were bought from a flower shop selling funeral flowers. We prayed, sanctifying the flowers and reversing their purpose and essence. That instead of death, they shall symbolize life. Then we also rebuked the spirit of death to leave our place. That it cannot take any life in our midst. Death shall not prevail.
After several moments, we heard a commotion. A boy next door fell from the third floor and landed on top of a vehicle parked on the side street. He was rushed to the health center nearby, only a block away.
Later that day, we heard the boy suffered a slight injury. Nothing serious. Praise God, he survived.
Discernment By Tasting
On the day I was suffering from a toothache and a swollen gum, particularly in my front teeth. I had a strong sense that my pain was symbolic. I was sure there was no physiological problem with my teeth and gums. So I delved into the spirit realm praying, searching for its symbolic meaning and connection.
The Lord revealed to me that my mouth symbolized the prophetic movement. The pain in my teeth and gums indicated there was a problem: the inability to chew the teachings on the prophetic gift and office of the prophetic ministers nationwide. After praying on this issue, the pain in my teeth and gums disappeared.
Discerning Territorial Spirits
I did not know I was on the spiritual warpath ordained by the Lord. The Lord activated my sensors.
Sensing the presence of demons is not a good feeling. It’s terrible. Among others, it is also equated to pain. As a first timer, my mind was relentlessly connecting to the Lord seeking for answers. But there was none. As if the Lord left me on my own familiarizing the atmosphere.
Pain As Signal—Indicating The Presence of a Territorial Spirit
My first time sensing a territorial spirit equated to pain
I was on my way to Bulacan to preach at a youth gathering. While at NLEX, I was tormented with a mild sharp pain in my head. I wondered if it was something physiological. I was clueless. So I just prayed in tongues during my trip until I reached the venue, hoping the pain tormenting me would disappear. It did not. I felt it during my preaching until I went home. Puzzled, I continued praying. Not knowing how to pray about it, I opted to pray in tongues while my spirit was reaching out to God for answers. After several minutes of feeling tired and dazed, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I felt better. No trace of pain on my head. But I was still clueless.
Again, I was invited to preach in Bulacan, so I went and took the bus. Along NLEX, I felt the same pain in my head. Rebuking the painful torment did not make it disappear. While striving to discern the matter, I relentlessly prayed in tongues. Still no breakthrough; during and after preaching, I was feeling the pain. On my way home, while on the bus, I kept praying in tongues because I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Geographic Boundaries are also Spiritual Boundaries
Along NLEX after crossing the border of Bulacan, the sharp pain tormenting my head instantly disappeared. There was peace, and I was glad praising the Lord.
As a beginner, it took me a while to understand. Because the painful torment in my head was felt only within the borders of Bulacan, I have surmised that their territorial presence and influence are bounded by geographic boundaries.
Summary
Territorial demons occupy and rule territories. They are high-ranking demons demonizing a town, city, province, or region.
Principalities are high-ranking demons demonizing a nation or a group of nations. Example of this is the Molech Demon—the god of abortion demonizing and killing children and mothers.
Discerning principalities and territorial spirits is a task of warriors empowered by the Lord to battle them in the high places. Divine guidance, revelation, and anointing are necessary in tracking them and in getting the battle plan and strategy from the Lord Sabaoth.
It is a tough assignment requiring a level of tolerance proportionate to the intensity of pain and illness. Sensitivity, humility, grace, love, prudence, a non-judgmental attitude, diligence, perseverance, and resilience are the building blocks in this kind of battle.
When God ordains our physical body to serve as the digital radar and sensor in the spirit realm, knowing the purpose and function of our physical anatomy is the key to unlocking the identity, works, and location of spirits.
The physical and spiritual are connected.
The physical is the symbol; it is the window of expression or stage dramatizing the spiritual.
What we see in the physical, they are conceived in the spiritual.
In order to solve problems in the physical, we connect them to the spiritual. There, understanding and wisdom come from the Spirit of God.
As God’s chosen connectors of earth and heaven, we are His channels empowered to unravel both physical and spiritual mysteries and usher the divine synthesis of the natural and supernatural.
Our Prayer: ‘Our Father in heaven…Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…’ is a profound prayer unlockimg the power of God’s kingdom to manifest God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.
When we sin, God’s will is not done on earth. When we align to His will in heaven, we become His kingdom on earth and His will is done as it is in heaven.
As God’s kingdom on earth,
We do not do our thing. No command, no action. God is our Commander. We hear and obey His voice. For His is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory. Amen.
……………leo.e.m.calderon.03/04/2025 . Revised 06/01/20255…………….
