UNDERSTANDING THE WAY OF UNDERSTANDING

:Seeing life from God’s perspective.

REV. PROF. BANK-OLA, STEVE – Ph.D.

Introduction

The mind is the Centre of reasoning and reasoning has to do with rationalized, logical & analytical thinking. It is absolutely obvious that God works and thinks on a totally different level than we homo-sapiens do. After spending a quality of my life in the exercise of the left logical side of my brain trying to figure out God; people, events and reason; I am left irritated and emotionally dehydrated. What makes it most interesting is we look back and the flow of our lives make perfect sense and in God’s perfect timing. The question that arises is – is it possible to live in a state of mind where we just go with God’s flow without trying to grab hold and figure life out in our own way?. The Bible quite agrees to this in Ps 18:30 – ” As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him”.

 I often ask myself – why do we even think we need to understand God’s way?.  Do we think our ways are better? Sure, we do at times. When we finally get to the point where we fully comprehend and accept the fact that God’s ways are not our ways and our plans are not better than God’s, we tend to enjoy the river of life more and look forward to the journey a head without uncertainty. As a man tube down in a river so a believer needs to have an inner–tubing down the river of life which is the word of God. You equally must know that if you stay on that tube which is the word of God in your heart, you will have a fun and interesting ride down the river and eventually get taken to where you want to go.  As you set on the river you have no control of what direction you face, the current sets your pace and you are directed by natures’ Obstacles through the water. Hence while you have absolutely no say in your destining down the river there is such a comfort sitting on that tube floating on top of the waves feeling that powerful body of water beneath you. My reader, there is another chance for you now even as you are reading this book. God is working on your life above the water or in the currents below. Do you want to fully understand what God is doing? Get that inner tube, get on top alongside God I mean study the word, hold on in trust and let the river of His Holy Spirit give you a ride of a life time.

There are four of the ways of understanding. For someone who had heard quality teachings and instructions from the scriptures which represents the mind of God.

1.            He can disagree with it.

2.            He can agree with it

3.            He can yield to it

4.            He can see it.

The teaching and instructions from our maker – God are meant for the destruction of all the satanic depositions as we read in Gal 5:19 for eliminating defilements, for uprooting impurities, for putting an end to conceit,  for guidance and restraint so that there may be growth is good decline in evil,  for destroying ill. To these things an individual can disapprove or argue against or offer counter – view or dismiss what he had heard. He may base his action or “my way is one and the way of these teachings and instructions is another. There is no agreement between my way and the way of this good teachings and   instructions.

The person or group of people in this category the Bible calls them “the dead”  as we read in Prov.21:16.. “The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead’’. They are moving corpse like the children of Israel in the book of Ezekiel’s 37:11 –14. God saw that they are already in their graves even while they were alive. Why? Because they strayed from the way of understanding of quality teachings and instructions from the Almighty who is perfect in all things. Such a person or group of people will never experience growth but a decline in good things.

Some people may agree with and not disapprove of or, argue against, dismiss or offer a counter – view. They embrace and hold to what they had heard. Yet they say “my way is one and the way of the good teaching and instructions are one. There is agreement between my way and the way of this teaching and instruction but in body, conduct they conduct themselves according to their own way not the way of good teachings and instructions of their maker and in higher matters of life they have no understanding. For such category of people there would be automatically a decline in good things and growth in their race of life the bible calls them the “dead”.

An individual who flows in the way of understanding is revealed as one able to see into a matter and discern its composition by separating the individual factors or features that compose or act together to form a whole, then to perceive the relationship between them and comprehend, or grasp the significance or meaning of the matter as it relates to his life in line with the mind of his maker – God. This may be illustrated with a language. If a person is to understand what is spoken in a certain tongue he must be able to distinguish individual words composing the sentences, know their meaning and see how they relate to one another. However, even though a person may basically comprehend what is said to him, understanding can also go beyond such simple comprehension; it means that he gets the real significance and sense of the message, and then is able to evaluate its benefits by it and know what action it calls for. In the book of Neh. 8:2 -8 when Ezra the priest read the book of the law before the people in Jerusalem all intelligent enough to listen were gathered. Even though these had mature minds able to understand all the words; the Levites were explaining the law to the people – instructing the people in the law, or giving understanding by reading aloud from the book of the law of the true God. It is being expounded and they continued giving understanding in the reading.

Every instruction of the scriptures is designed to convey definite profit to enhance our glorious future. There are no useless instructions in the scripture because the Bible is not a theological cafeteria where you take some and throw away some - 2Tim 3:16. This connotes that the principles of the scripture are profitable. Its corrections are profitable. The reports of the scriptures and the teachings are profitable. You don’t have to say it because people will see it. It is designed to add values and colour to believers’ lives. Every outstanding has its root in understanding because it is the quality of your understanding that determines the dimension of the outstanding you can ever command.

According to the book of Proverb 21:16; it means spiritual understanding is what guarantees outstanding result you can dream of. There is so much agitation, screaming, shouting in the body of Christ today because there is little depth of understand. This is the reason behind all the sweating, yelling restlessness, struggles and pricking. When we seek the depth of understanding, we supernaturally scale the height because it is the depth that determines the height we can scale. The reason is, the height of a building in the natural is determined by the depth of its foundation.

It is not just reading books, claiming promises, attending vigils, going to Mountain tops, sleeping in churches etc. it is being able to tap into what is being spoken by Christ and understand it. When your understanding blossoms you scale the height you desire without sweat. My reader I believe you have given your life to Christ as peradventure you have laid your hand on my book divine illumination. Therefore let your emotion be set aside but let your understanding come alive. Just understand God and the reason why you are earth, you will be outstanding in your race of life because if purpose is not known abuse is inevitable Ps.119:144–145 “The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live. I cried with my whole heart; hear me, O Lord: I will keep thy statutes.

You need to understand here that the quality of your life is a function of your spiritual understanding because every testimony is traceable to spiritual understanding of God and His principles. You only need to get yourself established in the way of understanding. The Eunuch said to Phillip, how can I understand except someone guides me. That is the reason, God had ordained prophets, teachers, evangelists, pastors, apostle etc in the body of Christ to enhance spiritual understanding of God’s people which this book in no measure is intended to provoke on your inside the spiritual understanding about the mind of God for the entire humanity and the reality of the life of dominion and power to subdue and manifest God’s glory in the physical reality.