Tuesday 26th January

Read Psalm 119:137-144

Your testimonies arerighteous forever; give me understanding that I may live. (v. 144)

It is so important to truly understand what God iscommunicating with you through His word!

But you need to know that the understanding you need is notsimply a theological understanding of what the Bible teaches. The kind ofunderstanding you need is spiritual understanding.

The words and concepts of the Bible are plain and usuallysimple. But there is a spiritual level of understanding that has nothing to dowith intellectual ability. Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 2:12-14. Thiskind of understanding comes from God, from the Holy Spirit. Paul says that a “natural man” (a person operating fromjust their own intellect) “cannotunderstand” the things that the Spirit of God wants to teach him, “because they are spiritually appraised”.

A couple of verses later, Paul tells the CorinthianChristians that he could not speak to them on that deeper, spiritual level,because they were still “fleshly” and“infants in Christ”. They had nevergrown to that deeper level of receiving spiritual truth from the Holy Spirit.

You can know heaps of theology and yet still not know how toreceive spiritual understanding from the Holy Spirit. Have you learned toreceive understanding from Him yet? Why don’t you pray to God today with thepsalmist, “Give me understanding that Imay live!”