Repentance and Discernment

"Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it: but the instruction of fools is folly" (Prov. 16:22). The thing on my mind today is the importance of having divine understanding. As the verse from Proverbs tells us, it is an enormous difference maker in our lives; whether we have understanding, or if we do not. Another proverb shows us the severity of obtaining godly understanding, and then forsaking it at some point afterward: "The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead" (Prov. 21:16). It only serves to reason if "understanding is a wellspring of life," that one would in some sense die if he forsakes it. Another passage that shows us the correlation between divine understanding and 'life' is an old testament prophecy of Jesus: "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears" (Isa. 11:2,3). 'Quick understanding' means understanding that is alive with the life of God (Heb. 4:12). As the verse says, that kind of understanding does not conclude things according to the appearance of something, or according to what someone else says about it. Jesus sees things the way the actually are, from the divine perspective, and we are called to be 'one' with he and the Father; which is to say one mind, one heart, and one soul (Jn. 17:21-23; Acts 4:32). The only way we can be 'one' with God and with his Son, and have the same kind of understanding, is if we have that same quickening power dwelling within us. Understanding is life because understanding is the Spirit of God, or "the Spirit of life" as the apostle Paul called it (Rom. 8:2). Jesus said that he had "come that [we] might have life, and have it more abundantly" (Jn. 10:10). He was speaking of the same divine, eternal life that both he and the Father possess, as he stated in another place: "For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself" (Jn. 5:26). The life that dwells in both the Father and the Son is that "Spirit of life" that Paul mentioned in Romans 8:2, saying that it "makes us free from the [nature] of sin and death."

That is exactly why Jesus came to this world, to set us free from our two big troubles, sin and death. Seeing that it is actually the holy Ghost that makes us free from sin and death, it makes good sense of the short and simple message that John the Baptist preached about the reason for Jesus coming: "[John] preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" (Mk. 1:7,8). It is indeed the baptism of the holy Ghost, as it was experienced at Pentecost, that puts each and every believer into Christ, thereby making them a "new creature" (Acts 2:4; I Cor. 12:13; II Cor. 5:17). This is how we are made 'one' with Christ, as well as with the Father, because this is what puts us into them, and them into us. Jesus, telling his disciples how he was going to send the Spirit back to them after he went away, said this: "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (Jn. 14:20). That is exactly what Jesus was talking about when he prayed for believers in him to be 'one' in the same way that he and the Father are 'one:' "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one" (Jn. 17:22,23). The 'glory' he mentioned is actually the Spirit, because we are told in one place that Jesus was resurrected by "the glory of the Father, and in another place it says he was raised to life "by the Spirit" (Rom. 6:4; I Pet. 3:18). This is also how Jesus explained in another place how that he and the Father are one: "I and my Father are one... If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him" (Jn. 10:30,37,38). So the reason that Jesus said in John 14:20 that his disciples would know that they were in him, and he was in the Father, and he in them as well; was because them receiving the holy Ghost is what would put them in that divine mix, and so it did. The scripture tells us, "Now the Lord is that Spirit," because the Spirit is actually the very essence of God and his Son (II Cor. 3:17). Again, speaking of his disciples being baptized with the holy Ghost, Jesus told them, "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (Jn. 14:23).

So being baptized with the holy Ghost is how we become 'one' with both the Father and the Son, and that is what it takes to obtain divine understanding. To this the apostle Paul agreed: "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God" (I Cor. 2:11). Jesus also made it clear that it would take having his Spirit to understand his sayings: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (Jn. 14:26). He punctuated this same thing in another place as well: "Howbeit when... the Spirit of truth, is come, [it] will guide you into all truth" (Jn. 16:13). The beloved apostle actually made the point in one verse that the Spirit is the very understanding of God: "This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth" (I Jn. 5:6). John made that point even more emphatically earlier in the same epistle: "But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him" (I Jn. 2:27). The 'anointing' he spoke of is without question the Spirit of God. So we must have the Spirit, which is to say be baptized with the Spirit, in order to have that 'quick understanding' that Jesus had and has. But only receiving the Spirit does not get us there, rather we must be 'led by the Spirit' and taught by the Spirit; and that takes "walking in the Spirit... and not fulfilling the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). The Spirit of God will impart divine understanding to us because the Spirit is holy and pure, and proceeds from the heart of both God and his Son (Jn. 7:38,39; Rev. 22:1). But we must avail ourselves of the power of the Spirit in order to keep ourselves pure from sin, because if we do not then our connection with God will not be pure and holy, and our understanding will be darkened. The apostle Paul warned the believers in Ephesus of this very thing: "This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart" (Eph. 4:17,18).

The angel of the Lord told Daniel something very integral about the end time, and about those who would be living in that time, in regard to divine understanding and righteousness: "Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand" (Dan. 12:10). That certainly confirms that we can only have the understanding like Jesus has if we are first purified from sin by the baptism of the Spirit, and remain pure afterward as well. John, in speaking of the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the dead, said the same thing that the angel told Daniel: "And every man that hath this hope [of salvation] in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" (I Jn. 33; I Thess. 5:8). Like the angel said to Daniel, it is those who allow themselves to be purified from all sin through their trials, that will understand what is going on, and will be ready to meet the Lord at his coming, whether they are dead or alive. So the holy Spirit of God is life, and it is truth, as the scriptures plainly show us. The holy Ghost is the only divine understanding that exists because it truly is the mind of Christ, as well as the mind of the Father. That is why the apostle Paul referred to "the mind of Christ" in one place, and the "mind of the Spirit" in another place, because the Spirit is the mind of Christ (I Cor. 2:16; Rom. 8:27). So knowing that divine understanding will make the difference between those who are saved and those who are lost, it's no wonder that Jesus closed every message that he sent to the messengers of the congregations in Asia, with the following words: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the [congregations]" (Rev. 3:6, etc.). May we one and all purify ourselves till the end so that we can always hear the voice of God's Spirit, which alone can lead us to eternal life (Rom. 8:14; Psm. 119:105). Amen.