psalm 119:34

34 - Give me understanding,

and I shall keep thy law;

yea, I shall observe it

with my whole heart.

The original Hebrew word from which "understanding" was translated is "biyn" - meaning "discernment."  "Observe" comes from "shamar" which also carries the meaning of "to guard."

It is not enough to just know.  I know many things, but that does not mean that I embrace them, live them, become them.  So, knowing the Word is only the first step in becoming the Word.  After knowledge, understanding must come.

1 Corinthians 2:13-14 states, "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Knowledge may come from study, but understanding can only come from the Spirit.  

And the Spirit can only teach those who are open to His voice--His mind--His precepts.  It can only come when we walk with Him on a daily basis and can recognize His voice among all the others that crowd into our heads.

Luke 24:45 describes a startling scene where the disciples who had spent 3 1/2 years with Jesus were trying to come to grips with the fact he had risen from the dead, walked through a wall into the room where they were, and was eating the fish and honey they had prepared for their supper.  

Their eyes were proving the events to their brain, but their brain was not able to translate the events to their heart. 

"Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures."

When God opens our understanding, it becomes a heart matter.  We METABOLIZE the Word.  It becomes us.  Surface reading and debate can't do that.  The check-off box on the Bible reading chart can't do that.  The duty-filled skimming of the devotional Bible can't do that.  

Only slow, deliberative, interactive conversation between the Logos, the Soul, and the Spirit can do that.

"The heart is never one with God til it is at one within itself,

and it is never one with itself til it is at one with God."

Charles Spurgeon

© 2012 by Melani Brady Shock