Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Grace”
Our Bible verse for today: “Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God.” 1 Corinthians 2:12 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “God’s special grace enables us to understand spiritual truth.”
I was raised in a Christian home and spent virtually all of my childhood and teenage years in church. So I was familiar with the Bible. But I was not a Christian and truthfully, I found the Bible to be rather boring. Interestingly however, later in life, when I placed my faith in Christ and became a Christian, the Bible suddenly came alive; from that moment forward it became the most interesting and absorbing book I had ever read.
What happened to make what had once been boring to suddenly become so interesting? It was God’s gift of special grace in my life. Beyond the common grace of God which I had, up to that point, experienced right along with every other person on the planet, in the moment I opened my heart to Jesus and received the gift of His Holy Spirit, I was flooded with God’s special grace.
God’s special grace is multi-faceted and greatly varied, but one of the elements of it is spiritual understanding. This is what Paul was teaching in 1 Corinthians 2:12-16. In verse 12 he tells us that the Spirit helps us to understand that which we had previously been unable to understand. In verse 13 he writes that the Spirit explains spiritual things to spiritual people. In verse 14 Paul says that unbelievers do not understand spiritual things because they don’t have the Holy Spirit explaining it to them. Therefore those spiritual things seem foolish (and boring) to unbelievers.
In verse 15 Paul writes that the spiritual person, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, is able to evaluate things accurately; and in verse 16 he says we can even attain “the mind of Christ.”
But please don’t miss this very important point: Special grace is a gift that has to be received and embraced. This new ability of ours to be illuminated and instructed by God’s Holy Spirit does not happen automatically. We have to cooperate. You will not discover the deep riches of the Bible if you don’t bother to read the Bible. You will not hear the soft and gentle voice of God speaking to you in prayer if you don’t pray.
Rick Warren writes, “Spiritual growth is not automatic. It takes an intentional commitment. You must want to grow, decide to grow, make an effort to grow, and persist in growing.”
Part of God’s gift of special grace to you is the opportunity to gain new understanding of spiritual realities. But you do your part and He will then do His. God’s special grace enables us to understand spiritual truth.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 