God’s Marvelous Mystery
Opening Prayer
Ask the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of your spirit, so you might see and understand God’s wisdom.
Read 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
[6] We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. [7] No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. [8] None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. [9] However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”- the things God has prepared for those who love him- [10] these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. [11] For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. [12] 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. [13] 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. [14] 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. [15] The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, [16] for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
According to Paul, how may we understand God's wisdom?I have always enjoyed murder mystery novels. The only problem is, once the murderer has been identified and I know whodunit, it’s boring to read the mystery a second time! The Father gives all Christians the gift of the Spirit. That is a bit like having the name of the person whodunit printed on the front cover of a mystery novel, except that instead of spoiling the story, the Spirit helps us to understand it (12). Only through the Spirit can we see the mystery, hidden for ages (7), that in Jesus both Jews and Gentiles are heirs together of God’s promises (cf. Eph. 3:1-13). Only through “Spirit eyes” (10,14) can we see through the sin and the mess and the pain of this life to God’s glorious vision of a people united in Jesus. God doesn’t let us see how things are going to end up as a way of taunting us with a dim and distant future we cannot yet enjoy. No. He shows us how things are meant to be, beckons us toward it, and gives us his Spirit to help us get there.
Apply
What would it mean for you to seek understanding through the Spirit rather than by human judgment?
Closing prayer
Ask God to go on filling you with his Spirit and to give you the mind of Christ (16).
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