ILLUMINATION OF THE SCRIPTURES—THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

 

Learning of God is not just study and head-knowledge. Having the Word is not enough. We need the Spirit to remove our blindness and to illuminate the Word. Therefore, David prayed:

Psalm 119:18 Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

2 Corinthians 3:17–18 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord [through the Word], are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

The Spirit enables us to understand:

Ephesians 3:16–19 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Without the Spirit, the Gospel seems foolish and even offensive:

1 Corinthians 2:12–16 Now we [Apostles] have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Jesus exemplified how the Spirit works:

Luke 24:44–45 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

What if Scripture does not come alive for you? Ask God to show you if you have built a wall against His influence:

Philippians 3:15–16 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Our Lord will answer:

1 John 5:13–15 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.  And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Commit to trusting that He will answer your prayers:

Psalm 37:3–7 Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!