From the time I was saved, I've heard people talk about discerning things and almost always it was related to how they felt about something or someone. Since I heard this so much and from so many different people, I accepted it as true. After all, all those christians couldn't be wrong could they??? It turned out that they were though, and I was just plain shocked!
As I studied God's Word, He taught me about discernment, and I discovered it has absolutely nothing to do with our feelings. That makes a lot of sense to me now as I know the Lord tells us that we're not to trust our feelings. But at first, it didn't make sense as I didn't realize that. I kept thinking, "well, if it doesn't involve our feelings, then how do we tell?" Of course the Lord gave me His answer from His Word, and His answer was, "from His Word" 
Over and over the Lord tells us that we're to trust only His Word. We are not to trust our own philosophies, ideas, and especially not our feelings. I wondered why we weren't to trust those things and again found the answer in His Word. He tells us that when Adam sinned, his mind and heart, or in other terms, his thoughts and feelings, became corrupted by sin, just as everything else did, and this is passed down to us as well. I don't mean that it's passed down genetically, and I probably shouldn't use that term at all. What God says is that sin itself corrupted the thoughts and feelings of Adam and Eve and continues to corrupt the feelings and thoughts of all people since then. That's why we must have the Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us God's Truth. That's why we cannot understand God's Word without the Holy Spirit, because our minds are corrupt, depraved, as are our feelings.
So if discernment doesn't involve our feelings, what is it and how do we get it? Does it just happen like magic, all of a sudden when we're saved? That's the way most folks seem to think it happens, but it doesn't.
Simply put, discernment is the ability to think scripturally, or biblically, which includes the ability to determine if something is or is not of the Lord. There are literally dozens of scriptures that talk about this, but the one that I think nails it down the best is this: Hebrews 5:14 —But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. * This is talking about God's Word and how we should study it constantly and regularly. It's saying that those people who do study His Word regularly, by constant involvement with His Word, literally are training themselves to be discerning. This isn't talking about reading the bible, but studying it, because as you continue reading, he says "lets leave the elementary teachings and go on to maturity". He's berating them for not studying the Word, saying that because they haven't done so, they're still babies in the faith and they need to get busy so they can become mature and discern the truth for themselves.
In our day however, discernment has become thought of as more like something psychic or maybe some kind of mystical awareness. This is of course another of Satan's lies to keep God's people from the truth, for the last thing Satan wants is for us to study God's Word! And he's done a good job of keeping many from it too. After all, why should they study if they already have this magical discernment? I understand now of course that the discernment that many talk about isn't discernment at all. Or at least it's not biblical discernment.
But what about the gift of discernment? Yes, God does give some people the extra gift of discernment to be used for the benefit of the body of Christ, but even though it is a gift, and not something we teach ourselves through constant use, it's a gift He gives to those who are mature already and have normal discernment already. The gift itself wouldn't help someone who wasn't mature since they wouldn't know what to do with it. Giving it to someone who wasn't spiritually mature, would be like a parent giving a two year old a book of matches to play with. We know our Father isn't irresponsible like that, so we know He wouldn't do that. If they weren't spiritually mature already, they wouldn't know how to operate their gift.
There's a couple of great examples of this gift in action in the bible. There's the time Paul used this gift when a girl who supposedly predicted the future was following him around and telling everyone that he was there to tell them about God and how to be saved. Paul recognized that it was a lying spirit, a demon and cast it out of her. Another time is when Peter exercised this gift and determined that Ananias and Sapphira were lying about the money they'd given to the church. In both of those cases, as in all cases of discernment, they did not follow their feelings or senses. They followed the Word of God. They knew what God's Word said, and recognized various things in each instance that were at odds with God's Word. Therefore they knew that these people were not acting according to the Word and needed to be put in their place. To examine the scriptures, and test the spirits, does not mean to check and see how you feel about something. (Acts 17:11; 1 John 4:1)
What I've come to realize over the years is that it's the world that wants us to rely on our emotions and on our own thought processes and judgment, while God constantly tells us not do so, but to instead rely on His Wisdom from His Word and the authority of His Word. I guess I've come to see myself more and more like a child. I used to be proud of my intelligence back when I got saved, but now I could care less about it because I realize it's not worth two cents unless it's being guided by the Lord and His Word.
