In our ministry, we have the privilege of working with young people from the ages of 17 to 25 years every single day. They come from all over the world to our Bible school in Monterrey, Mexico seeking to know Jesus, His Word, and the power of His Holy Spirit in their lives.
As with all Bible schools and seminaries, our students tend to be the ones who are most passionate about their walk with Christ among their peers.
Now, this isn’t a humble brag. It’s just a fact that not a lot of young bucks out in the world are clamoring to get into Bible school.
It takes a special person who has been awakened to their spiritual need for more of God and His Word to come and spend an entire year of their life studying the Scriptures, serving tirelessly in the Church, and going on mission trips.
In short, these guys are not your average young person who is lost in the sinful current of this world, blissfully carried along to an eternity without God.
Despite the spiritual hunger our students have, they all come into our school with some major blind spots.
These are areas of their life in which they simply don’t see what is wrong. They certainly can’t see how to get out of the mess they’re in.
As a result of these blind spots, their inner spiritual life and outward behavior suffer a hit-and-miss dynamic where some days they are the model of Christian virtue, but on other days, they fall into the same sins they’ve been struggling with for years.
The constant up-and-down cycle is not just frustrating, it can cause major existential doubt in their minds.
- Am I really saved if I’m still acting like this?
- Am I going to be like this forever?
- How can God love me when I continue to screw up over and over again?
Unfortunately, we’ve seen many students simply give up on their faith. Like Peter, they sink despondently into the inky black depths of their doubt.
All the while Christ stands there with His hand desperately stretched out, ready to rescue them.
Our Bible school students aren’t the only one with blind spots.
You and I also have them! Perhaps you can identify with their struggle.
If you’re reading this post, it’s probably because, like them, you also are hungry for God.
You too want something more for your spiritual life.
So how do we get rid of the blind spots in our lives so that we can walk steadily in the light of God?
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what is the richness of His glorious inheritance in the [saints], and what is His exceedingly great power toward us who keep trusting Him—in keeping with the working of His mighty strength.”
Ephesians 1:18-19 TLV
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul informs them that he is praying for them. Specifically, he’s praying that the “eyes of their heart” would be “enlightened.”
Talking about the heart of a person is a way of speaking about their mind. The mind is the seat of understanding, emotion, and desire within the human person.
When Paul prays that the “eyes of their heart” would be “enlightened,” he’s praying that God would cause them to understand something that they couldn’t see before.
It’s fascinating to consider how Paul is not writing to unregenerate sinners, but to saved, Spirit-filled Christians.
Although they have a relationship with Christ and they have been born again by His Spirit, they still have areas of their lives in which they are blind to truth.
In the same way, all of us have areas of blindness in our lives, parts of our understanding that are still darkened, which hold us back from growing spiritually.
In Ephesians 1:18, Paul doesn’t pray for the believers to be scared straight. Instead, he prays that they would understand three great mysteries.
Paul wants them to understand the…
- “Hope of His calling,”
- The “richness of His glorious inheritance in the [saints],” and
- “His exceedingly great power.”
Somehow, by coming to understand these spiritual truths, the Ephesian believers would have what they need to flourish in their life with Christ. The same is true for us today.
When we suffer from blind spots in areas of our spiritual, emotional, and physical lives, we don’t necessarily need a miracle, a healing, or even a deliverance.
What we need is to understand. We need our hearts to be enlightened!
This is important because we often waste so much time and energy seeking a supernatural intervention going from revival to revival or from healing service to healing service.
Of course, this is not to mention the amount of money we spend to get to these centers of revival when all that we really need is to have the eyes of our heart enlightened.
Now is a good time to state clearly what biblical enlightenment does NOT mean.
Biblical Enlightenment vs. Gnosticism
Biblical enlightenment is unrelated to Gnosticism or New Age.
While the word “enlightenment” and “enlightened” is used in gnostic religions such as Buddhism or New Age philosophy, the terms do not mean the same thing.
Gnosticism is an ancient religious idea that suggests the physical world we live in is flawed or even evil, created by a lesser divine being.
The true, higher God is good and exists far beyond this material realm.
Gnostics believe that hidden spiritual knowledge (in Greek the word is gnosis) can help us understand this divine truth and connect with the higher God, offering a path to spiritual salvation.
This knowledge is considered secret, accessible only to a select few who are destined to find it.
When a person attains this hidden knowledge, they are said to have become “enlightened.”
But when the Bible talks about enlightenment, it is not saying that somehow you’ve got to attain some secret information reserved only for a select few.
Biblical enlightenment is when you understand deeply a truth that has always been plainly there in Scripture, waiting patiently on you to finally get it.
A Bible teacher once said, “God hides revelation for us, not from us.”
In other words, God wants you to understand the truth!
In understanding the truth in His Word, you will find freedom.
Then Yeshua said to the Judeans who had trusted Him, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free!”
John 8:31-32 TLV
Why does Jesus tell us that we need to abide in His Word?
Because we don’t tend to understand spiritual things on our first reading. Because spiritual things are discerned by the spiritually minded.
Becoming spiritually minded takes time. You have to abide in the Word of God.
Patiently, Expectantly Waiting for Enlightenment
So, where are you in your spiritual journey?
Are you like many people today desperately searching for the cure to whatever problem they’re going through?
Are you anxiously looking for that special, highly anointed person to pray for you to receive your miracle?
What we need more than that is to simply be patient and wait expectantly in the Word of God for revelation.
We need the eyes of our heart to be enlightened.
Over the next few blog posts, we’re going to explore the three areas in which Paul prays that you and I would be enlightened to understand.
- The hope of His calling
- The glorious inheritance you have in the saints
- His exceedingly great power
Before we get to that—make sure you subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss a single post in this transformative series.
