Illumination

The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name . . . will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

John 14:26

Abraham Lincoln studied his schoolbooks by the flickering glow of the fireplace, but most of us have trouble reading in dim light. We’ve all had the experience of reading or studying in the late afternoon, only to realize the room is growing darker. A sudden flip of the light switch corrects the problem, bathing the words of our book in light.

The illumination of the Holy Spirit is like that.

People read the Bible every day without the Holy Spirit’s aid—even skeptics and atheists can read the words. But when, as God’s children, we ask the Holy Spirit to open this Book to our hearts, it’s like reading with the light on. Paul wrote, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12).

Let’s learn to pray as the psalmist did, “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law” (Psalm 119:18).

We should pray that the Holy Spirit would give us his illumination and thereby help us to understand rightly when we study Scripture or when we ponder situations in our lives.

WAYNE GRUDEM