Discovering God’s Secret
Opening Prayer
“Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening” (1 Sam. 3:9). I take this moment to prepare my heart to hear You, Lord, just as Samuel did.
Read 1 CORINTHIANS 2:6–16
God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit
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.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
Think back upon the days when spiritual things meant nothing to you. Aren’t you glad that God’s Spirit was leading you all that time?
Think Further
A shop window may be full of goodies, but until the shopkeeper lifts the blinds they remain out of sight. This simple act of unveiling is what the word “revelation” means, describing what God has done for us by his Spirit. In Corinth there is great interest in wisdom, both in culture and in the church. In the teaching of the false apostles, who are opponents of Paul, wisdom is highly prized. Earthly wisdom alone, though, will not satisfy our longing to know God. We need God to lift the blinds to reveal his nature and his ways through the work of the Holy Spirit within us. He alone is the source of true revelation, not the media, or even what other people say. Only then can we discover God’s secret, the Gospel of salvation in Christ.
Paul is not downplaying education, but he does call upon his readers to recognize its limitations without the Holy Spirit’s revelation. No human mind has fully conceived what God has prepared for his children in eternity, but it can be grasped by faith in the power of the Spirit. Such divine revelation can keep us from despair when trouble comes. When we feel that we are wasting away outwardly and troubles get us down, the Spirit within renews us and gives us a divine, eternal perspective that keeps us going (2 Cor. 4:16–18).
Those who live without a personal relationship with God through his Spirit are ill-equipped to understand spiritual realities—these realities are foolishness to them (14). Jesus told Nicodemus that unless someone is born again by the same Spirit they cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). There is a spiritual blindness around us today. Being able to see the kingdom, even to the extent that we can have the mind of Christ, is attributive to the work of the Spirit.
Apply
Welcome God’s revelation to you today. What is God saying to you by his Spirit right now?
Closing prayer
Lord, help me to depend more completely on the power and revelation supplied by Your Spirit in my life.
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