Objective: We will examine the factors that enable a believer to understand (and cherish) God's word and how we should respond to the reality of these factors.
So, this past week, Harold and I joined a group of people from our church to go on a prayer walk at a local park in downtown Tampa. The intent of the prayer walk was to engage in conversation with people, to learn of any present and pressing needs they had (and would be willing to share with complete strangers!), and to offer them prayer for those needs.
I was paired with another lady from the church, and at the onset of our walk, we each prayed for the hearts of the people that God would lead us to speak with, and for our own hearts as well. There was one specific part of my companion's prayer that God used to speak to me that evening. Her plea went something like this: "Lord, help us to be humble and to simply be obedient to share your truth in love."
Talking to complete strangers about such an intimate and universally diverse matter as prayer can be intimidating. Even the apostle Paul seemed to be somewhat familiar with the intimidation that can accompany the obedient act of speaking truth to others. He makes this assertion in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5:
"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."
Paul confesses that it was in weakness and in fear and much trembling that he shared such an implausible, or unlikely, message. And yet, despite all intimidation, he walked in obedience and humility as he shared God's truth in love with the people in Corinth--the very thing we are called to do with the people in our own cities.
Well, there just so happened to be a storm brewing over our city that evening as we were driving to the park. I would be lying if I failed to confess that the nervous (and selfish) part of me was hoping that the inevitable downpour would soon commence and squelch our mission. However, upon hearing my partner pray those words--help us to be humble and obedient--and after engaging in conversation with one particular woman that evening, God began to lift my anxious thoughts and, instead, directed my mind to this one, praiseworthy reality: He has graciously granted me with an understanding of the Gospel and of His word.
The stories and messages of the Bible, which once seemed to me empty, meaningless and fictitious, have--since believing upon the Lord Jesus Christ--become messages filled with hope, and instruction, and purpose. If you are in Christ today, the testimony of transformation I just shared will mostly likely resonate with you as well. And that leads us to consider the essential question of this post: What enables a follower of Christ to understand (and then cherish) the word of God, especially when we consider that so many others cannot understand it and do not cherish it?
I am writing this post under the conviction that before we endeavor to share God's word with others, in hopes that they will understand and cherish it, we must sharpen our awareness of how we ourselves have been enabled to understand God's word. And this awareness will remove (or at least lessen) the intimidation we may feel in sharing God's truth.
As i mentioned earlier, there was one particular conversation that evening which led me to consider the essential question of this post. At one point in the evening, the rain did indeed start to fall. We fled for cover under a nearby building, and that is where our conversation took place.
The woman we spoke with had a hodgepodge of incomplete, and sometimes incoherent, truths to share with us related to God's word, the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the reality of sin (please bear in mind that my aim is not to berate this woman and her understanding as I recount this experience to you--rather, it is my aim to respond humbly to this experience in an effort to seek and apply Biblical truth to my own life).
As we asked this woman questions, listened to her answers, and responded with God's word in love, I could sense that she did not possess an understanding of the true, saving Gospel of Grace--that Christ was sent by God to live a life of complete obedience (thereby substituting his obedient life in place of our disobedient life), to die and bear the punishment of sin (thereby absorbing the death and punishment we deserved due to our sin), and to be raised from the dead to eternal life (thereby restoring our hope for eternal life instead of eternal death).
While driving home that evening, I shared with Harold just how humbled I felt that God, in his mercy and grace, would grant me an understanding of His Gospel, while others, at present, were left without that understanding. And though that is a hard reality to consider (the reality that some are not/have not been given understanding) this post serves mainly as an opportunity to praise God, as believers, for the understanding He has granted to us, and the understanding he has yet to grant to others. I want to direct our focus to the factors that enable us, as followers of Christ, saved by grace, to understand the word of God and the true Gospel of Grace.
Inasmuch as Paul understood the intimidation of sharing God's word, He understood fully and with complete conviction the factors that enabled followers of Christ to understand God's word, and this compelled him to share with others. He says this in 1 Corinthians 2:11-12:
"For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we 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."
Paul was well aware that followers of Christ are given a mind to understand the word of God only after God himself has given them the Spirit to understand. And this precious Spirit of understanding is given the moment we believe upon Christ for salvation. So then, God himself enables us to understand His word.
Paul goes on to say this:
"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."
Apart from the Spirit of God in us, we would not understand, nor would we cherish, any of the things found in God's word. Again, God himself enables us to understand, and cherish, His word.
Do you see the theme emerging from this text? It is by God's grace and power alone that we can reap any understanding from His word and from the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! This is such a sweet, humbling, an praiseworthy truth to meditate upon! Just think about it--the only reason we, as followers of Christ, can receive comfort, healing, hope, wisdom, love, instruction, purpose, delight (etc.) from God's word is because God himself has given us a mind to receive such meaning! Without God's enabling, we would consider His word folly, or foolish.
This truth can give us great confidence to share God's word with others--for we know that the power to transform a mind belongs to God alone by means of His word alone. The power does not rest upon our presentation, rather, it rests upon God's enabling Spirit of understanding, which God graciously bestows upon those who believe in Jesus Christ for their salvation.
In closing, I want to share a song that beautifully captures the reality that God enables us to understand His word, by His Spirit. The song is titled, "O Great God" and is written by Bob Kauflin of Sovereign Grace Music (FYI--Sovereign Grace is my favorite worship group, so expect for me to bombard you with more of their wonderful songs as my blog advances!). Every single time I hear the second verse, a sense of awe and gratitude washes over my soul:
"I was blinded by my sin
Had no ears to hear Your voice
Did not know Your love within
Had no taste for Heaven's Joys
Then Your Spirit gave me life
Opened up Your Word to me
Through the gospel of Your Son
Gave me endless hope and peace"
May we always be thankful to God for giving us eyes to see and ears to hear the truth of Christ, and may we share God's word in love, trusting in His power to transform and to save--with minds set above.
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