Unopened Gifts - Part 3: Understanding

Unopened Gifts Part 3:  Understanding

One of the strangest questions you hear during this time of year is this:  What is the true meaning of Christmas?  There is a difference between knowledge and understanding.  Knowledge is an accumulation of various facts and concepts, a database of information that tells you about something or someone without the ability to see beyond the facts.  Understanding is completely different.  To understand a thing you must ask the question beyond mere knowledge.  Why is a thing the way it is?  Why are we the way we are?  It’s a deeper truth than mere knowledge and it often eludes us as we understand so little about this life.

When it comes to unopened gifts, the one that I understand the least would be understanding.  That’s not a joke, because therein lies the problem.  Our understanding of things on the deepest level is severely limited by that which we cannot achieve on our own, namely, the understanding of deeper things, spiritual things that so often elude us.  The invisible God gave us His Spirit to dwell within us through Christ, and that indwelling meant that a world previously foreign to man was now front and center.  Part of that gift in knowing Christ, in the Word becoming flesh and liberating us from sin, was to give us understanding as a gift to be used to know the very nature of God in Jesus.  But for Christians whose minds are often geared towards what we see, what can be known in the material universe, understanding can easily elude us.  Not because it is outside of our grasp, but because God’s great gift of understanding lies dormant in our hearts.  What does it take to get understanding?  To open this incredible gift?

Ephesians 1:15-20

¹⁵ Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, ¹⁶ do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: ¹⁷ that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, ¹⁸ the eyes of your ^[f]understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power ²⁰ which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹ far above all principality^[g] and ^[h]power and ^[i]might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.

As we finish our series on unopened gifts, I want us to look deeply at the subject of understanding and the prayer of Paul for us to receive the same thing he asked for the church in Ephesus. 

If we want understanding, we must know God

·         God sent Jesus for a very specific purpose:  That we may know God and receive wisdom and revelation through Him – Every day you use various keys to unlock things of value to you

·         The hidden wisdom of God is found in Him, and if we want understanding we must pursue our knowledge of God more than anything else:  1 Corinthians 2:1-2 And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the ^[a]testimony of God. ² For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

·         To know God is to understand Him if that knowledge is more than simply fact, and more a deep and powerful bond to the One who loves us most:  If we say we know a person it has different meanings (God the key to everything I’m missing, everything I want to be)

Understanding comes when we see the greatness of what we’ve been given

·         For those whose eyes have been opened, they will understand what is truly great about this life and the life to come:  It’s one thing to own something, it’s another to understand it

·         It is in seeking understanding about the things of God, the invisible blessings we have, that we see a world filled with promise and possibility:  2 Corinthians 10:3-5

³ For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. ⁴ For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, ⁵ casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

·         When we come to rely on God to reveal the fulness of who He is in the knowledge of the things He’s promised us, we wield the greatest power revealed to man:  We’ve heard knowledge is power, but the truth is that understanding is true power.  To understand what we have is to know how to find victory and renewal, and every other hidden gift that God has granted us.  Microsope

Understanding brings us to the fullness of Christ

·         Eternity was redefined the day Jesus rose from the dead.  That eternity, that path Jesus laid for us, began the day we came up out of the water of our own death.  Understanding will take us to the same place Jesus went:  The New Year

·         This understanding of the fulness of Jesus can only happen when we know the life we’re living and fully embrace it:  John 3:3

 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born ^[a]again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

·         Once we seek to understand our life with Christ our understanding will be full:  Fulness in Christ described a way to live your life – Artificial tree versus real tree

God Bless,
Michael