The knowledge of God you have in your mind is not the same as the knowledge you have of Him in your heart. Mental understanding takes place in your mind. Spiritual understanding takes place in your heart.
You can have a mental understanding of God but not understand Him spiritually. The heart is where the spirit of God lives within you—where He quickens your spirit to receive His Truth. The Spirit bears witness with your spirit (Romans 8:16)—not your mind. Faith is not a mental exercise born of emotions and feelings and reasoning. It doesn’t rise from the logic of your mind. Faith rises from the seed of the Word planted in the fertile soil of your heart. It believes with the heart. Faith is spiritual and God is the source of the spiritual. And the words God speaks to your heart are spiritual life (John 4:24, John 6:63).
Faith comes by hearing the Word spiritually with your heart. It doesn’t come by hearing it with your natural mind. Your heart has spiritual ears and understanding to receive God’s Truth. “Son of man, receive into your heart all My words that I speak to you, and hear with your ears” (Ezekiel 3:10, NKJV).
Paul prayed for the Ephesians to spiritually “hear” and receive in their hearts a revelation knowledge of God. He prayed for them and also for us “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power” (Ephesians 1:17-19, NKJV).
This revelation knowledge is not something that automatically happens in your life. It comes from seeking and pursuing God. We are not meant to have spiritually blind eyes, ears, and no spiritual understanding. God wants to pour into our hearts the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Him. He wants us to believe His Truth and have spiritual understanding and be enlightened by it. He wants us to know the hope of His calling in our lives and the great power He has given us who believe in Him. This doesn’t come from just being renewed in our minds. This comes from believing in our hearts.
We have been given the Grace to believe, but we have to open our hearts to receive. We have to surrender our natural mental blindness of Truth for God’s spiritual sight. We have to surrender the natural hearing of His Word and receive His Truth spiritually in our hearts. We have to surrender the feelings of our natural understanding for the spiritual understanding of His Truth. We are called to be people of faith. Yes, our minds must be renewed by God’s Truth, but the heart is where we believe we are made right with God (Romans 10:10). The heart is where His miracle happens.
Look at Ephesians 1:17-19. What is the hope of His calling and His power in us who believe? It is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. But if we don’t have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in our hearts about His power within us, we will not know that this power is ours. When we don’t believe what Christ has given us, we have no spiritual understanding of our capabilities in God. But when the eyes of our spiritual understanding have been opened to receive, we have His eyes to see, His ears to hear, and His understanding to see what the natural mind cannot grasp. And our hearts believe.
Grace has healed us in spirit, mind, and body. But we can’t understand this Truth with a closed mind and heart. The Word won’t build our faith if we don’t seek God’s Truth and spiritually “hear” it. We can’t understand with the mind of Christ if we don’t believe that we have been given the mind of Christ. And we can’t believe with the heart without faith. The Grace of Jesus opens you to believe and receive all that Jesus has given you. But you choose to have faith. You choose to surrender and seek. You choose to let nothing come between you and the Resurrection power He wishes to reveal in you.
You take ownership of God’s Truth when you spiritually receive it in your heart. Look again at Ephesians 1:17-19. When you believe these verses in your heart, they are true for you—not just for someone else. They are yours. God will freely give you His wisdom and impart to you the revealed knowledge of the Holy Spirit. You will believe without a doubt that you possess God’s exceedingly great power—the same power that raised Christ from the dead. And you will hear in your heart—not with your natural mind but with your spiritual understanding: “Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matthew 13:16-17, NKJV). (Ephesians 1:19-20, NKJV).
The same power that raised Christ from the dead is alive in you, but if you don’t have spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear, and a spiritual understanding to believe this Truth in your heart, you will live a defeated and powerless life.
Why would you not seek to believe in your heart what you have been given by the love of God in Christ Jesus?
©2021 Lynn Lacher
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