Opening Your Understanding
(week 26/08)
Olubi Johnson
In our article last week we saw that God wants us to be highly motivated to ‘open’ the scriptures, to get the hidden knowledge and wisdom therein concerning all human endeavors and our personal lives.
This week we will see how to ‘open’ our understanding so that when the scriptures are opened to us by anointed prophetic utterances, preaching and teaching, we will be able to receive the keys of knowledge so given to us and use them to further open more scriptures in our personal Bible reading and study:
Luke 11:52 (ESV): Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
Matthew 16:17-19 (ESV): And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. (18) And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (19) I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
2 Corinthians 4:6 (ESV): For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
How then do you ‘open’ your understanding?
Ordinarily we need to know that our understanding is ‘closed’ to spiritual truth in God’s Word.
Spiritual things are imperceptible to our physical senses; in particular they are invisible to us. So when we are told about spiritual things they sound foolish or unreal to us and so our minds are ‘closed’ to them.
So to ‘see’ the invisible or appreciate the reality of spiritual things, spiritual light from the Holy Spirit, through our human spirits, must shine into our minds, through the ‘door’ of our wills.
The more willing we are to do God’s will the more open our wills are and the more light that can pass from our spirits into our minds:
John 7:17 (ESV): If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.
This is why the scripture says in
Proverbs 11:2 (ESV): When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.
So the more humble: willing to do the will of God even when you do not feel like it, you are, the more your will is open and the more light and so wisdom you can get from God.
So you open your understanding to the spiritual wisdom that comes from God, by being humble.
You exercise and increase your humility by fasting and submitting to the will of God especially when you do not feel like it:
Psalms 69:10 (ESV): When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.
1 Peter 5:5 (ESV): Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.“
The more humble you are, the more grace or the greater the measure of the life of God (1 Peter 3.7) and so the greater the measure of the light of life (John 8.12) and so the greater the knowledge and wisdom of God you can get.
In addition to this as an indispensable foundation to open your understanding to spiritual knowledge and wisdom from God you need to:
1. Pray for the spirit of revelation and wisdom daily from Ephesians 1.17-23, Col 1:9-11, and Philippians 1:9
2. Pray in tongues frequently every day to release hidden mysteries from the Holy Spirit into your mind:
1 Corinthians 14:2 (ESV): For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:7 (MKJV): But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which God has hidden, predetermining it before the world for our glory;
Also pray with travail as daily habit, like Jesus did (Hebrews 5.7), to flood your mind with rivers of living water (John 7.38-39), so flooding your mind with light so you can see the hidden ‘manna’ in the written Word.
It is instructive to note that the light you get from praying in tongues is like the light of the candle stick in the Holy Place in the tabernacle, whereas the light you get from praying with groanings or travail is like the flood light of the Shekinah glory of God in the most Holy Place. Praying with travail, rents the veil of the sin nature in the mind and flesh, causing one to make a transition in the spirit from the Holy Place to the Most Holy Place.
3. Read and study God’s Word as a daily habit.
By practicing these things as a daily habit, your understanding will become ‘open’ to be able to receive the hidden treasures of knowledge and wisdom in the written Word
