And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Mark 12:33
Definition of Understanding (According to Strong’s Concordance G4907): Running together, a flowing together with, knowledge, understanding, the understanding, i.e. the mind so far forth as it understands.
In the New Testament, the word “understanding” has a somewhat different meaning. It is about integrating knowledge to something useful. Understanding is connecting the dots to paint a clear picture of God’s heart.
Jesus’ disciples are good examples of individuals who did not have a clear understanding of spiritual matters while Jesus was with them. Jesus taught and mentored them perfectly. However, many times they misunderstood Jesus’ statements because they didn’t have an understanding. This was evident in their questions and attitude while Jesus was with them.
We may have a lot of Bible knowledge but lack the understanding of God’s heart and will for our lives. One of the definitions of understanding is “a flowing together with.” Is it possible that some of us don’t know how to allow the scriptures to flow together to paint a complete picture of God’s heart and His Kingdom?
We may have focused only on those scriptures that have encouraged us at the sacrifice of other scriptures that make us uncomfortable. Therefore, we prefer to hold on to the ones we like and neglect the ones that challenge our theology. This causes our understanding to be limited and not to flow through the scriptures.
When we look at the landscape of Christianity around us, everyone is claiming that they love God and want to honor Him. However, you can find Christians advocating and praying for things while others Christians are praying and advocating on the opposite side of issues. Some believe that if something is important to them, then God must be endorsing it. Some Christians don’t read the Bible but just want to stay in the spirit and worship God. Others don’t even take the Bible literally and perceive it as a nice literature or poetry. None of these are indications of gaining understanding.
Let’s pray that the Lord would increase our understanding of His Word and His Kingdom as we read the Bible. Then we can love God with the understanding that flows through all the scriptures.
