THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD'S WILL - PART 5

FRIDAY 20 JANUARY 2023

It pays to know the Holy Spirit in an intimate, conscious manner, not just in a casual sense of awareness, so we can gloriously function in the wisdom and understanding He gives.

Reference: Colossians 1:9 New Living Translation (NLT) "So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding."

Today's discussion is majored on spiritual understanding and it is my duty to inform us that we have the right to obtain "understanding" which the Spirit gives. Beyond this, we can rest assured that we have a responsibility to receive and embrace His wisdom first and foremost because that's the right order of manifestation.

This order is evident in Proverbs 4:7, which reads, "Wisdom is the most important thing; so get wisdom. If it costs everything you have, get understanding" (NCV). Why is understanding most often mentioned alongside wisdom? Let me explain it this way: We need both wisdom and understanding. We can agree that a tree can never be complete without a root, meaning that you'll never see a tree with only the main trunk and its branches, standing tall with no root. Even in humans, our will is like a stem, while our heart is like the root. And there is no possible means, by which man's will can produce any good fruit contrary to the character of man's heart, which is the root. Therefore, wisdom is of man's will but understanding is of the heart.

To that effect, Job 38:36 (NASB) reads, "Who has put wisdom in the mind? Or who has given understanding to the heart? This suggests that the heart is exactly where spiritual understanding takes place. Why? The heart of man is the control room or centre of his entire being, with respect to feeling, emotion, intuition and understanding. To further instantiate this, Jesus said in Matthew 13:15 (NKJV) - "For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them." What can we grasp from this Scripture? Wisdom is spoken and heard with the mouth and ears respectively, but understanding is registered in the heart.

What then is spiritual understanding? Isaiah 11:2 (ESV) reads, "And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD." From this Scripture, we can comprehend that the Spirit of wisdom and understanding work hand in hand. This ultimately controls the entire view of our spiritual growth and perception. Without spiritual understanding, you cannot grow spiritually, because we grow by what we understand and apply by heart. Remember the Bible says, "By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established" (Proverbs 24:3 NIV). So even your spiritual growth is established by understanding. Therefore, I define spiritual understanding as God-given capacity to think (reason) as a Christian, and your hearty capacity to put such reflective thinking together, in an accurate manner, after receiving God's thoughts and perspective (wisdom), by faith.

The Greek word for understanding is suniemi - which means, to heartily comprehend, by implication or conclusion, after hearing and perceiving. Got it? It is to consider and then, understand, after being wise or when you wise up. It is to put (as it were) the perception with the thing perceived and to join them together in the heart for ready application. The contents of our understanding determine the kind of words and deeds we can produce outwardly from within. Simply put, from our spiritual understanding, the heart reaches out for its choices of action. Hence, every thought, word and deed will always partake of the nature or attitude of our understanding within. Even in your faith walk, you are raised to a position of dominance and mastery - by spiritual understanding, not by spiritual blessing, not by aptness, and not by potential ability.

Finally my beloved, I ask God to give you complete knowledge of His will, as well as spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in His knowledge. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Luke 24:45; Acts 16:14; Ephesians 3:18-19; 1 John 5:20.

Exuberant Declaration: The meditations of my heart are sweet and pleasant within me, because the Spirit of God has opened my understanding to the wordings of divine wisdom, which are the very source of my inspiration. Therefore, I am glad in the Lord, and I boldly speak of His praise and excellencies with my lips, day and night. Hallelujah!