Key scriptures – “You are righteous, Lord, and your laws are right. The statutes you have laid down are righteous; they are fully trustworthy. My zeal wears me out, for my enemies ignore your words. Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your servant loves them. Though I am lowly and despised, I do not forget your precepts. Your righteousness is everlasting and your law is true. Trouble and distress have come upon me, but your commands give me delight. Your statutes are always righteous; give me understanding that I may live.” (Psalm 119:137-144 NIV).

It is so important to truly understand what God is communicating to us through His Word! But we need to know that the understanding we need is not simply a theological understanding of what the Bible teaches. The kind of understanding we need is spiritual understanding.

There is a spiritual level of understanding of the words and concepts of the Bible that has nothing to do with intellectual ability. Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 2:12-14. “What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments.” (NIV).

This kind of understanding comes from God, from the Holy Spirit. Paul says that a “natural man” (a person operating from just their own intellect) “cannot understand” the things that the Spirit of God wants to teach him, “because they are spiritually appraised.”

A couple of verses later, Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that he could not speak to them on that deeper, spiritual level, because they were still “fleshly” and “infants in Christ”. They had never grown to that deeper level of receiving spiritual truth from the Holy Spirit. “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).

Have you learned to receive understanding from God yet or are you still a “spiritual infant”? Why don’t you pray to God today like the psalmist, “Give me understanding that I may live! Fill me with Your Wisdom and pour Your Spirit on me. I want to know Your ways.”

Pray this – Our Precious Heavenly Father, I want to grow in my understanding of You and Your Word. I know that the Fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom and understanding. In Proverbs 2 You tell us how to do this; “If we accept Your Words, and store up Your commands within us, and tune our ears to wisdom and our heart to a life of understanding, if we call out for insight and cry out for understanding, and if we look for wisdom as silver, search for it as a hidden treasure, then we will understand the fear of The Lord and find the knowledge of God. This will give us the kind of understanding to know what is right and just and fair – and to find every good path. Wisdom will enter our hearts and knowledge will be pleasant to our souls, discretion will protect us and understanding will guard our soul.” Father, that is what I want and what I pray for – to receive spiritual understanding from the Holy Spirit. I do not want to be a spiritual infant any longer. I want my spiritual powers of discernment to be trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:12-14). I will study Your Word so that I am mature and so that I am well trained in spiritual discernment. I know Your Word is where I will find the wisdom, insight, and understanding that I need to live a life that pleases You. Give me understanding that I may live! In Jesus’ Name, I pray, Amen.