WEDNESDAY June 5th
Ephesians 1:17-18
‘. . .may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you . . . ’
Well, the first part of what Paul prays for the believers is found in verse 17 of Ephesians, that he ‘may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened’, the reason being ‘that you may know’ and he continues with what he wants them to know.
So, the first part of the request is that they may receive ‘the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him’. Note that it is Spirit with a capital S, that is he is referring to the Holy Spirit and he is describing something of who the Holy Spirit is, he is the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation, and as we receive the Holy Spirit this way as the NIV puts it, it is that ‘you may know him better’.
The Holy Spirit helps to bring us into a greater understanding of who God is, and however long we may have been on our Christian journey, we can all come to know God even more, so we need as did the Ephesian church to be given the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. Because this wisdom and knowledge comes from the Holy Spirit, it is therefore supernatural wisdom, it is supernatural revelation, it is far superior to anything we can attain to in the natural realm.
Being a people of the Holy Spirit, we have had our hearts enlightened, we can understand things that those who are not saved cannot understand, this is because of the Holy Spirit being the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. In 1 Corinthians 2:9-12 Pauls says this, ‘But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.’
I can only answer for myself, concerning how little or much I may understand about God, but I am sure that just as Paul prayed for the Ephesians so we need to pray for ourselves and for one another, that we will receive in abundance the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to enable us to know God even more.