Grace Abounding

Why I Picked Up This Book

Lately God has led me through a lot of change and into increasing responsibility as a husband, discipler, and urban church planter. I’ve been asking myself, “How can I grow in maturity and wise living so I can honor God and influence others to Christ?”

Tim Challies’ book The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment has led me to the answer. Challies has lit a fire in my heart to pour over Holy Scripture more, dependently seek God’s face in prayer, and think carefully about how to lead my family and our church. In his book, I’ve found an easy-to-understand guide to discerning what is best and what is unwise. This is a great read for every teen, college student, parent, and believer who feels pressure to make life-altering decisions and who wants to know how to live wisely in our sin-cursed and increasingly complex world.

What’s Inside?

Tim Challies methodically talks his readers through the need for discernment, its source, and the process of becoming a discerning believer. Chapters 1 and 2 issue a call for every believer to ground themselves deeper in God’s truth so we can navigate the times we are in. Challies alerts us that our culture, the Adversary, and even our own hearts are subtly working to push us off-track from honoring God. I was gripped by realizing how my desire to be right or viewed as competent has been an obstacle to receiving wise input in my life.

Chapters 3 to 5 demonstrate that discernment is based in a thorough and growing study of the Bible. The Spirit takes the truth we’ve learned and helps us apply it to the situations we face. The words of God are the yardstick by which we can measure every influence in life to discern between what is really true and what just has the appearance of truth. Also, our quest for discernment will succeed because God desires us to be discerning, grants us the Spirit’s presence to aid our discernment, and has spoken words of wisdom generously through the written Word.

This book is worth the cost just for Chapter 6 which tackles the pressing matter of how to find God’s will. Contemporary Christians desperately seek to know God’s personal will for their lives as though it were a holy grail. Challies removes the mystery shrouding God’s will by showing that God’s will is rooted in careful study of the Word, counsel from your elders and experienced Christians, and prayerful dependence on our Sovereign Lord.

Chapters 7 to 8 remind us that our pride easily twists God’s good gifts (like the gift of spiritual discernment) so that we disrupt Christian unity if we let “wisdom” get to our heads. Chapters 9 and 10 are intensely practical step-by-step guides that reveal where wisdom is found and how to discern between right and wrong, caution and boldness, and wise and unwise.

Why I Recommend It

You’ll quickly come to realize that Tim Challies is a regular everyday Christian like you who wants to honor God and is on a journey of maturing and growing like you. Since he’s sharing about his quest to grow in discernment, he writes in a practical, “how-to” way to which we all can relate. Challies is a faithful guide, for he points us away from subjective feelings-based ways of decision-making and instead points to knowing and enjoying God as the source of wisdom for skillfully living life. In his care to methodically his ideas to his readers, at times his writing can plod along and re-explain too much. Yet I found my heart deeply stirred throughout the book, realizing how much I need greater wisdom for living. I finished the book in awe of how accessible God makes wisdom available through Spirit-empowered study of the Word and growing relationships in my local church and with the Lord.

You can pick up a copy of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment here or at the GraceBooks table on Sundays at Grace Church of Alexandria.