“For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might" Ephesians 1:15-18
Paul writes a prayer in the beginning of Ephesians that the eyes of the believers’ hearts become enlightened to understand their spiritual inheritance in Christ. Paul is admonishing an experiential, relational knowing of Jesus, the light of the world, that transforms our entire being. The “heart” Paul refers to is the inner man - the centre of our mind, will, and emotions.
The Bible uses the concept of natural light to illustrate a spiritual principle. Light is ultimate truth, freedom, clarity, love, and life. When Jesus declares Himself the light of the world (John 8:12), He is declaring that He is the natural embodiment of all these spiritual principles. When I receive Jesus, I instantly receive all of his light. I am instantly made exactly as He is (1 John 4:17).
Darkness is not the opposite of light - it is the absence of light. When light begins to shine in darkness, darkness ceases to exist. Darkness invites evil thinking and behaviour, but is not, in and of itself, intrinsically evil (Isaiah 45:7). The Lord tells Hosea, “My people are destroyed for their lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). This “knowledge” is a lack of personal relationship with the Lord. Denying the Father-heart of the Lord is to invite darkness. Paul tells us that darkness in the human mind is directly caused by ignorance and hardness of heart.
.”"yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." 1 Corinthians 8:6
John Ortberg writes: In 1780 a Jesus-follower in Great Britain named Robert Raikes could not stand the cycle of poverty and ignorance that was destroying little children, a whole generation. He said, "The world marches forward on the feet of little children." So he took children who had to work six days a week in squalor. Sunday was their free day. He said, "I'm going to start a school for free to teach them to read and write and learn about God." He did, and he called it Sunday school. Within fifty years, there were 1.5 million children being taught by 160,000 volunteer teachers who had a vision for the education of a generation. Sunday school was not a privatised, optional programme for church children. It was one of the great educational volunteer triumphs of the world. The alphabet of the Slavic peoples is called Cyrillic. It was named for Saint Cyril, who was a missionary to the Slavs and discovered they had no written alphabet. Thus he created one for them so they would be able to read about Jesus in their own language...
A Methodist missionary, Frank Laubach, cited an extraordinary encounter with God about a century ago that put him on a mission to lift the world out of ignorance. He began a worldwide literacy movement. The phrase "Each one teach one" flows out of the extraordinary life of this man... He became known as "the apostle to the illiterates".'
The truth is our journey of enlightenment with the Lord is a combination of learning not only about Him, but about Him in us. When we mature in intimacy with the Lord, learn His spiritual language, and invite Him into everything, any hard area of our heart begins to soften and yield to His glorious light. We receive the healing and wholeness we have already been given through the Cross.
Christian enlightenment is about the head and heart. His love for us transforms us more than anything else. When we intuitively grasp His love for us in different areas of our life, our behaviour automatically changes in response. He does all the work, we just need to yield. We pray for His light to flood our mind and His warmth to flood our heart.
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