Understanding the Truth

The more we glimpse of spiritual truth, the more that is revealed to us, the more painful it is that others do not see or understand what we see.  Jesus' pain at the lack of understanding on the part of the disciples, whom He loved, must have been extremely hard:  Do you still not understand?

When we love others, we want them to know and understand the deeper things of God---but it is impossible to "give" them this gift.  Only Jesus can bestow the Spirit of Truth.  Scripture says, "We scarcely comprehend the things on earth, but what is exceedingly deep, who shall find it out?"  Jesus said to Nicodemus: You are a teacher in Israel, and you do not know these things?

Study and imagination cannot penetrate the things of God; He communicates with His friends to reveal the secrets of His heart.  Study might prepare us to receive, but until the Spirit of God illumines the words, they fail to give life.  Prayer, like love, reveals more of the truth than many years of scholarship.

If we enter into the secret dwelling-place of God within us, we find truth.  Paul says, "The Spirit searches the deep things of God" to give them to us, but that the natural man cannot understand the things of God, for they are foolishness to him (I Cor. 2:14). 

Jer. 31:31 puts it this way:

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.  I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.  No longer will they have to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the Lord.  All, from the least to the greatest, shall know me, says the Lord.

Fortunately, we are now living in "those days," the days of the New Covenant, where all of us, from the least to the greatest, can know the Lord and hear the secrets of His heart.