The revelation life is one in which the man or woman of God is led and taught by the Holy Spirit. The greatest revelation is knowing Jesus. Some revelation is known by many, but it is revelatory in your life when it becomes known to you. Some revelation is new, but it is always built upon the old. Truth can never change, but only be expounded upon. There is no secret to living the revelation life other than simply drawing near to God, confessing Jesus as Lord and being led and taught by the Holy Spirit.
You cannot reach the depths of God using the natural tools of man. Knowledge comes through study, but revelation only comes from God.
You cannot take revelation that only He can give. The Apostle Paul prayed, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened…” (Ephesians 1:17-18).
Knowledge of the world is attained. Knowledge of the Lord is received. Pray the Holy Spirit would teach you truths that only He can understand and only He is qualified to teach you.
The barrier to revelation is insisting on gaining it yourself. You don’t gain revelation, it must be given to you.
Revelation is a mystery solved, the truth uncovered. Paul wrote, “…by revelation He made known to me the mystery…“ (Ephesians 3:3). Often the arguments with man are not on the truth itself, but the degree to which it has been revealed. Never argue over a revelation that is not yet revealed into the heart of a man.
Revelation does not come by the efforts of man, but by the power of God. “For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12).
To gain worldly wisdom requires much effort. To gain heavenly wisdom requires much submission.
The Lord cannot reveal a new thing until you first have eyes from which you can see. Pray to the Lord, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” (Psalm 119:18).
Revelation requires sight to see the revealed. You can only see revelation with your spiritual eyes open. Your natural vision is a hindrance to spiritual truths.
Revelation is being shown the truth that is hidden in plain sight. You don’t need to search afar to discover more truth but pray the Holy Spirit would reveal all that is before you.
Revelation is not seeing something new, but in having something revealed that was there all along. It is not that God has hidden the truth, only that we are blind to see it, deaf that we might hear it, with a heart that cannot understand it. “Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day” (Deuteronomy 29:4).
Spiritual senses are never attained, only received. It is never a matter of trying harder but yielding more.
The secret to revelation in God’s Word is that hidden truths cannot be found by you, but only revealed to you. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
The greatest barrier to the revelation of truth is the lie you firmly hold onto.
Revelation never changes a truth of God, but only expounds on what has already been given.
Revelation is not new truth, but hidden truth revealed. The more we understand, the more we will trust in Him. The more we trust in Him, the more He will reveal. “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, And He will show them His covenant” (Psalm 25:14).
Living the Revelation Life
You won’t gain more revelation of truth until you start living the truth already revealed to you.
You must have the revelation of who you are before you can see who you were meant to be. The revelation of who you are is in what you do. The revelation of what you are meant to be is in what He is calling you to do.
The Word revealed revives. “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law” (Proverbs 29:18).
You cannot climb spiritual mountains, only be lifted to them. The harder you try, the prouder you are.
Intellectualism is the obstacle to spiritual understanding.
Revelation cannot be found through the wisdom of man. The wisdom of man is foolishness to God, and the wisdom of God is foolishness to man.
Preaching Revelation
The greatest revelation you can preach is Jesus. “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants…” (Revelation 1:1).
You cannot preach revelation to those in darkness because they cannot yet see. Instead preach light, that they would step into it.
Revelation attracts the most critics, thus exposing them.
Don’t try to explain more so your preaching is safer but reveal more that your teaching is more effective. You will never satisfy the arguments in the natural when the subject requires spiritual understanding. “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches… But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:13-14).
The more natural you put in your message, the less spiritual will remain.
Never search for revelation just to teach, but to learn. It is in our greatest struggles that God lays the path through which His truth can flow through us onto others. Live the lesson that you can then teach it.
Blessings to you,
Paul
All Scripture is in red and uses the NKJV (New King James Version) translation unless otherwise noted.
I prefer to use the term ‘illumination’ than ‘revelation’, although a broad meaning of ‘revelation’ can be used that might include God illuminating something in scripture we didn’t understand previously. iF by ‘revelation from God’ as meaning voices in our heads and God speaking directly to us apart from his word, we might have a problem. If what we call ‘revelation’ that which has been written, hasn’t it already been revealed by God? There seems to be a lot of folks telling us God spoke something directly to them to give/declare to us. And it is recived as if these people are somehow speaking with a special prophetic voice.Of course they tell us we can all learn to operate in the ‘prophetic’, and some offer courses to learn how, for a price of course. OK, enough soapbox. I just read about a course offered by the Arnotts (false teachers) and saw professing believers fawning all over them. My apolgies.
Hi Dan, so if your assertion that God does not speak directly to man, then we would need to exclude large sections of the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments, as within Scripture we see it so clearly stated all the numerous times and ways that God has spoken to people. We can see it from all the Trinity, that the Father spoke, the Son spoke and the Holy Spirit spoke. They did not all of a sudden become mute.
We would also have to exclude the prophetic words of Christ on His promises of how the Holy Spirit would interact with believers, and how we saw the Holy Spirit acting in the book of Acts. The Holy Spirit speaks yet to this day.
I don’t know the people you claim to be false prophets so cannot speak to your position on them. I do appreciate that we need to be very careful of those who claim to hear God, as I know from experience there is much deception. But we cannot say because there are false prophets there are no true prophets, as we would have the same logic we would then need to apply to teachers.
I have written a blog on warnings to the prophetic, hope to post sometime. But I think we need to be equally careful that we would not have ears to hear. Closing our ears to all things protects from the false but excludes gaining truth as well.
Jesus spoke on false prophets, but never said there would not be true prophets. I know of no Scripture that cancelled this office, but know of Scripture that confirms it.
We need to be so careful though, heeding the words in 2 Peter 2, which are directed at false teachers, and of Jeremiah 23, that address the false prophets. This is not a new problem, but things are going to get worse.
So I do appreciate your concerns, but we will have to agree to disagree on your basis for your concerns.
Of course God speaks through His written word and the Holy Spirit brings illumiation
We have to be receptive if we want revelation. There have been times when I settled down to read my Bible without really wanting to, just doing it out of habit or a feeling that I should, and I really didn’t get much from it. But then, going back to that same book/chapter later, when I wanted to actually be in it and take the time to ponder the meaning, it suddenly made sense. The same goes for asking for wisdom and revelation in prayer, we must really be open to receiving it, not just mouthing the words we think God wants to hear.
That is such a good and wise word. I think it would do us well if we were to seek the Lord in prayer before we seek the truth in the Word. That we need to be like Ezra, preparing our heart. Ezra 7:10 “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it…”. This scripture said the same thing you just said, there must be that preparation of our heart to receive. We cannot approach the word as dead ink on paper and expect our lives to be radically changed the the Holy Spirit pouring out from the pages of the Bible!