This passage of scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit and that is why it is part of the Word of God. Consequently, we can be sure that what Paul is saying that he desired for the church and what he is saying he prayed – we can be sure that this is the will of God. God would hardly allow Paul to record his prayer as part of the inspired Word of God if it were NOT an expression of His own will.

But before we get into the actual prayer, there is an important thing to note. In fact, it is essential to see, because it ties directly into Paul’s prayer. Note that up to this point in Ephesians, Paul has stated the purposes of God. He has told us that we have been, "blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." He has stated that it is God’s intent that we be, "holy and without blame." We are to be, "adopted as sons." Indeed, in Christ, we have Redemption and forgiveness. And then all of these purposes are gathered up in Paul’s declaration in verse 10:

Then, it is as if Paul, having caught his breath, continues on with the purposes of God for the next three chapters. Ephesians certainly deals with the eternal purposes of God for His people. Paul teaches about them all through this letter.

But what I want us to note is that despite all of the TEACHING of Ephesians – and Ephesians is loaded with true teaching – Paul nevertheless PRAYS that we would SEE. Have you ever noticed that? Evidently, Paul wanted us to acquire more than just theological doctrine and academic teaching from his letter. He actually wanted us to SEE – to have the, "eyes of our understanding enlightened," as to the Truth and reality of what he was teaching.

We cannot avoid the conclusion: There is more to knowing Truth than knowing facts. There is more to knowing Truth than knowing doctrine. There is a huge difference between knowing facts about Jesus, and being governed by the true knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. There is a huge difference between having your brain and intellect enlightened, and having the eyes of your understanding enlightened.

Paul could have simply told the Ephesians to read his epistle over and over again, until they intellectually understood it, if this were the goal. But he did not. Instead, Paul PRAYED – he prayed that the Holy Spirit would show them the spiritual MEANING of what He was teaching. It is a fact that anyone can read the Bible and know what it SAYS. But only the Holy Spirit can reveal to us what it MEANS.

However, when I say this – that the Holy Spirit must show us what God MEANS -- it is probable that some people will assume I am talking about the meanings and interpretation of Bible verses. Some may assume that I am still addressing Truth on the level of intellectual apprehension – sort of as if the Holy Spirit gives us the brain power to figure out the proper interpretation of a Bible verse – and that we could not arrive at this otherwise. Well, I’m not saying that this will not eventually be included. God does want us to understanding with our brains what the Bible teaches. Yet this is not Paul’s prayer.

Paul is praying, not that they would understand Bible verses, but that they would know CHRIST HIMSELF. Can we grasp the magnitude of this? That we are supposed to know God Himself – a spiritual being that we cannot see? This requires, not brain power, but revelation to a willing heart. Then, if we come to know Christ Himself, our understanding of the Bible verses is going to be according to the Truth. Absolutely.

There is only ONE Truth. Not two. And Jesus said, "I am the Truth." He is, in other words, the living Truth. Thus, if we know Christ, we will know the Truth. But the written Word of God is also the Truth – it is the written Truth – it is the written version of that ONE Truth. How could it NOT agree with Jesus? And how could Jesus, the living Truth, not agree with the written Truth? No. All revelation of the Person of Christ will absolutely be found in the written Word. And all of the written Word will be found in living form in the Person of Jesus Christ. Truth agrees with Truth.

We have to come to terms with one fact that is pressed home in scripture again and again. It is a fact that many don’t realize, and with which many others are uncomfortable. That fact is this: The true knowledge of God is received by REVELATION. It is revelation received from the OUTSIDE of you INTO you – rather than something you draw upon from yourself. Natural man, natural brains, intellect, and the soul realm CANNOT gender Truth. There is no Truth in there to draw upon. Every scrap of the Truth that you know has come to you via a revelation from the outside – or it is NOT the Truth.

Now, I am not saying that you must hear voices or that Truth comes only through some dramatic sign or wonder. No. Indeed, if Christ is in you, Truth is already in you, and it is a matter of God unfolding that to you. But just as you must be born again FROM ABOVE – so does all Truth come from above. If Christ comes to dwell in you through the Holy Spirit – if this happens only if you receive His life into you from the outside of you – then so it is with the Truth. Truth comes only through revelation. It is never the product of US.

This is exactly what Paul prayed as he did. He said, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened…" The whole point he is making is that despite all that he has written, and will write to us in his letters – that despite all of the written Truth contained therein – that if left to ourselves, it will remain merely academic and doctrinal. Thus, Paul prays that GOD WILL GIVE UNTO US – get that, GOD WILL GIVE UNTO US – the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Without that, Truth remains a bunch of true facts – without a real impact. We not only need to know the facts, but we need to SEE AND KNOW the Truth that these facts are talking about.

True facts can describe to us what our relationship with God ought to be like. But the Truth sets us free into that relationship. True facts tell us about God. The Truth itself reveals Him. It is possible to hold true facts and not be changed. But the Truth will make us true – and consequently, will set us free to know and live in Christ.

It is amazing how arrogant we can be – it is amazing how arrogant we can be over Bible knowledge. There are many of us who, because we think we understand the Bible, assume that our understanding has come about because of our own righteousness. Others think that our supposed Bible knowledge entitles us to something – or commends us in the sight of God. There are churches everywhere who promote individuals to positions of leadership based solely on their intellectual presentation of scripture. I have even witnessed cases where people have been appointed to the position of Bible study teacher, not even because they have a Bible education, but because they have an advanced degree in agriculture, or something else. Indeed, there are entire churches, and entire denominations, which practically worship the human intellect, in the sense that they have mistaken it for the spiritual values that God is after through Christ. Doesn’t the Bible say that the apostles were, "ignorant and unlearned men?" Sure. Seems to me that there is something else here that is of value, rather than mere brain power.

I’m not saying that it is desirable to be unintelligent. I’m simply saying that your intelligence means NOTHING with regards to knowing the Truth. You cannot drag down Truth and revelation from heaven with your brains. Neither can you muster up Truth by drawing upon the resources of your natural man. And you had better beware – knowledge puffs up. Not maybe. It just does. There are thousands of Christians everywhere whose confidence before the Lord is based on their brains. They will say it is based on Christ. But it is not. The tragedy is, they are blind to the difference. Why? Because they don’t know Him.

The sad fact is, so many Christian people don’t know the difference between what is created by them, and what is revealed by God TO them. Upon stating the need to know Christ, instead of merely knowing doctrine, I had the pastor of a church once say to me, "It is obvious that you teach that doctrine is unimportant." This objection exposed the fact that he did not know what I was talking about. Because I said that we need to know Christ in addition to knowing doctrines about Him, he took that to mean that I rejected doctrine in favor of experience. I think his misunderstanding was based on the fact that he didn’t know the necessity of truly knowing Christ. It was all about doctrine to him.

Ask yourself the question: Did Paul pray that the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened, and that we would know Christ? Sure. But didn’t Paul teach doctrine in the same letter? Yep. Well, was Paul contradicting himself? Was he saying, "Don’t pay any attention to my doctrinal teaching. I was just blowing off steam. Doctrine is unnecessary. Just know Christ."? No. Clearly, Paul was teaching doctrinal TRUTH. But he knew that God needed to open their eyes to the TRUTH HIMSELF about which the doctrines speak. He was saying, "I have written to you much about Christ, and about what God is doing through Him. Now I pray that God would open your eyes to see what I am talking about."

Funny how Paul says that he desires that the, "eyes of their understanding," would be, "enlightened." He did not say, "I pray that God would give you the academic grasp and interpretation. No. Paul was teaching about Christ, and now He wanted them to SEE CHRIST. Then they would understand what he was teaching.

If you and I see Christ, all of the teachings will make sense, and we will come to understand them. But if we do not see Christ, the best we can hope for is an intellectual grasp of teaching about Him. And really, over the course of time, even this will drift off. The Bible says that all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ. If we don’t see Him, we don’t know the Truth. Thus, we won’t be MADE TRUE. And if we aren’t made true, then at some point, the basis of error that remains in us will come to govern our understanding.

If you want to know why professing Christian people, even teachers, are capable of believing some of the most ridiculous things, here you have the answer. They don’t know Christ. Or they have embraced, "another Jesus." At best, they are operating in brainpower. They have produced what they believe out of their religious SELVES. And because they have not been MADE TRUE BY THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH – there remains error in them. It can come to govern. Indeed, not only will this result in believing error, but perhaps one of the greatest indications of not knowing Christ is the absolute apathy towards Truth to begin with. Many don’t care about Truth, or even KNOW TO CARE about it. There is no desperation. No need for it. It isn’t even something after which they seek. This is as great a deception as believing error, because it IS ERROR to be in such a condition of indifference.

Look up the word HERESY in a Greek lexicon, and you will find that it means, "a choice; an opinion." That might surprise some. But this reveals much. Heresy is a product of ME – it is teaching that has emerged from myself as the source – my brains, my grasp, my experience, my bias, and my natural understanding – even if this is augmented by outside sources. You must still do something with what you hear. Most who believe heresy don’t even realize that what they believe has been created by themselves. So they assume because they are so sure about their heresy that it must be the Truth. But heresy is from SELF. It is not from outside of myself; not from God. And the underlying cause of all of this is that we don’t know the Truth – we have not been MADE TRUE. So what is left to work with? Ourselves. Us. And so people produce their opinions – and present it as the Truth.

There is no escape from these possibilities unless we know HIM – unless the Truth sets us free to be MADE TRUE to God. Omit that, and we are on our own. Heresy will emerge – even if that heresy is blindness to our great need for the Truth.

There is a misconception even among those who realize the value of the Truth. They seek the Truth as a THING, or a bit of information – but they seek it apart from seeking God Himself. The Bible teaches that you cannot know the Truth unless you know Christ, for HE IS the Truth. Thus, if you want to know Truth, you must know Him.

Now, if we still limit, "truth," to doctrines, this won’t make any sense. But again, Paul, who taught lots of doctrine, nevertheless prayed that our eyes might be opened, that we might KNOW CHRIST. So this is speaking of a spiritual knowledge – a revelation. It is a matter of having the eyes of our understanding enlightened through the knowledge of the Person of Jesus Christ.

But herein lays the key. How can you come to know Christ? If knowing the Truth is a matter of revelation, then how do we get this revelation? What prompts God to give us this spirit of wisdom and understanding in the knowledge of Himself? Clearly, since Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would reveal to us all Truth, and teach us about Christ, God is not hesitant about doing this. Paul prayed that He would do it. So what is the key here to seeing this happen?

Well, first of all, can we get it settled once and for all that none of us can initiate revelation? No. If we could, Paul would not have prayed that God GIVE us revelation. And we would not need the Holy Spirit to guide us into all Truth. Instead, we could just reach up and grab it and pull it down. So even though we must be open to the Truth, none of us can drag it out of God. God has to initiate the revelation of Himself to us – which is actually what He wants to do.

One of the first things we need to see is that the revelation of God to us is tied directly to our relationship to Him – it is tied directly to our faith. The Bible says, "BY FAITH we understand….." (Heb. 11:3) I have found that when God initiates a situation that calls from us faith in Him – that this always involves DEATH to us. Now, that sounds bad. But what I am saying is that in order to truly believe and trust God, you are going to have to STOP trusting in yourself, or in anything else – and I promise you, you ARE trusting in things other than God, even if your trust is in nothing more than YOUR own thinking. You will have to DIE to that – in other words, you will have to relinquish your trust in all but God, and fall into His hands. It is at this point that LIGHT has an entry point. It isn’t just light in the form of doctrine. It is the LIGHT who is a Person. He now has material to work with, and can enlarge His revelation of Himself to you.

Things work that way, not because God had set up a gimmick, or rules, but because we are here talking about what is necessary to be SET FREE from the old, so that we can be set free into the Truth about God Himself. What blinds us to God is our self-rule and our bondage to all that is natural. Thus, when THAT is dealt a death blow by the Cross, and we surrender into the hands of God, we are set free to SEE and KNOW Him.

You and I are naturally minded – whether we like it or not. We see and perceive through our natural senses, and interpret it through our natural thinking. The solution to this is, of course, the new birth. But just because we are born again, God doesn’t in a second take a big erasure and wipe away all of our habits and thinking. No. Despite the fact that once we are born again we have the capacity to see Jesus, this demands a process – God has to work to renew our minds, and get our wills surrendered. But as they are, the light that is found in Christ – the Christ who now lives in us – is able to break forth.

When God brings a cross into our lives, it is for the purpose of getting us to fall into His hands – an unconditional surrender unto death. But this is not a bad thing. It is actually deliverance. If we will do so – and again, it is often a matter of inward faith before it is anything outward – if we do so, then the power of the Cross will be further released in our lives to break the power of the natural. Because DEATH has been wrought in us, HIS LIFE will break forth, and wherever there is HIS LIFE, there is LIGHT, and discernment.

Now, what we see here is very simple, and yet it seems to be taught NO WHERE AT ALL TODAY. Indeed, it does take quite sometime to learn it, let alone experience it. It is a very simple principle: Our death – into the hands of God – always results in a greater release of the life of Christ in us. And with that greater release of His life, comes greater LIGHT. Thus, if you want to know Christ, surrender to Him when God brings the Cross.

This doesn’t mean that you should not study. But it does mean that study cannot substitute for surrender. God wants to reveal Christ to us. He might give us some meanings of Bible verses. But the goal is that we might see CHRIST HIMSELF. This is why Paul prayed that our eyes might be opened with a revelation of Him. Paul knew that study could tell us that this is what we need, but study alone cannot make it happen.

If you give yourself wholly to Christ, then what you get is Christ. You get a greater freedom in the Truth. You come to KNOW HIM. Then you SEE what the Bible means, and you SEE that it is the written Truth. This is simple, but so easy to miss.

So how do we come to know the Truth? God will initiate practical situations in our life that call for faith – which always includes unconditional surrender – and when we make that choice to lose our lives into His hands, we begin to SEE. Or, to put it another way, to the extent that I lose my life for Christ’s sake, I will find HIS life, and in His life is the LIGHT. Surrender to God and what you get IS GOD – and you will know Him.

There are other ways to say this. For example, read I John 1. There we are told, "God is light." We are then told that, "if we say we have fellowship with Him, but walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the Truth." Then John says, "If we walk in the light as He is in the light we do have fellowship…" So we see that fellowship with God is entirely dependent upon whether we walk in His light. In short, drop all the religion, all the games, and stop hiding from God. Come out into the light and expose yourself to Him – He sees it all anyways. If you do, not only will you be exposed, and set free, but you will enter into fellowship with God. Now note: What will result from fellowship with God – from fellowship with Light Himself? Well, you will see more light. You will see Truth. Sure. The OT says, "In His light, we will see light."

The point is this: You cannot see Truth unless you come into fellowship with God. God is light and Truth. But you cannot come into fellowship with God unless you come into His light. Come into the light of God and you will be MADE TRUE unto Him. That will mean He can reveal Himself to you. You will know the Truth – you will see Jesus.

So we see that this is about a relationship between myself and God. You cannot see Truth as a THING separate from fellowship with God. You cannot KNOW God apart from actual fellowship with Him. You cannot see light unless light is IN YOU. You cannot know the Truth unless you are made true to God. In short, this isn’t about knowing theology or Christian teaching. It is about knowing and experiencing a PERSON – Jesus Christ.

Now, as I mentioned before, it is entirely possible for you and I to draw upon our own understanding and experience, augmented by outside sources, and construct a god after our own image. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be some true facts, doctrines, and teachings mixed in. It doesn’t even mean that MOST of what we create won’t have some Biblical basis. It simply means that WE have structured a, "belief system," out of the materials that are available from natural sources. We have created God in our own image, and because we have, this god we have created will make perfect sense to us. And it is possible to do this, and to be SO SURE you are right – that you would literally die for what you believe. Lots of people have died for heresy. Lots have stood for error. They were deceived.

It is possible to talk about the need for light, all the while we remain in darkness. It is possible to talk about the necessity of Truth, all the while we remain deceived – our, "truth," is actually error. What is the problem here? The problem is that we have not been MADE TRUE by coming into the light – at some point we have stood aloof. That creates a darkness in us that blinds us to the Truth.

Knowing the Truth is the result of being made true. Being in the dark is the result of darkness in us. God has already promised that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all Truth. So if this isn’t happening for us, there is a problem.

There are basically two reasons why people are in the dark. The first reason is ignorance – God has not yet brought them light. He will eventually bring light, but at this point, He hasn’t. So they cannot see. The second reason why people are in the dark is that they have closed their eyes to the light God has given them. Note that if you close your eyes to the light, it is just as dark for you as it is if there is no light to begin with. Only the darkness is YOUR fault. And this can result in a terrible hardness of heart.

But again – closing your eyes to the Truth is not simply a matter of closing your eyes to true doctrine. No. Closing your eyes to the Truth is really a matter of closing your eyes to God – to your accountability to Him, and to your need for Him. There are plenty of people who proclaim true doctrine, but who are not in real fellowship with God. They are actually in the dark – although they talk using terms of light. The problem is that THEY have not come to the Cross.

To receive the Truth you must be willing to be adjusted TO the Truth. In other words, you have to be willing to be MADE TRUE. In the end, all of us are either adjusting the Truth to fit ourselves, which means to exchange the Truth for a lie, or we are allowing God to adjust us to the Truth.

Jesus spoke of this principle a number of times in the gospels:

Jesus is describing the EYE as the entry point for light – for our entire body, indeed, for our entire lives. Our eye must be SINGLE – the Greek word means, "free of folds or creases." In other words, our heart and intent must be open and exposed to God. We must have a single goal – that God would do whatever it takes to get His will. Jesus says that if our eye is single like that, then God has an entry point. Our entire life will be flooded with light.

Now, notice that the condition of the eye – the motive and intent – determines a person’s entire spiritual condition. If I have an evil eye, then this is going to result in darkness in my whole life. In other words, my faith and my heart towards God is going to determine how I see the Truth. If my faith and heart are dark, then this is going to cast a shadow over my grasp of the Truth. But if my eye is single, then it brings light upon all. In short, my motive towards God is going to directly affect how I see Him.

This is not so much about how I understand DOCTRINE. The doctrine is merely the spoken or written expression of what I SEE. Of course, my doctrine will be the Truth and agreed with the Bible if I see the Truth. But if I don’t see the Truth, my doctrine will be only true FACTS, at best, and if I am in error, then my doctrine will in someway reflect that error.

Why do we think that so many supposed Christian teachers, and those whom they teach, are so deceived? Why do they teach or believe such obvious error? It is because they DO NOT KNOW JESUS CHRIST. They CAN’T know Him or they wouldn’t teach what they teach. But as we have been seeing, they are to blame for this. Their EYE is not single. So their understanding is dark.

There are two reasons why people don’t see the Truth. One is that there is no light given to them. They are ignorant. They cannot see because there is not yet light given to them. But then there is another group. They are NOT ignorant. Light HAS been given to them. Yet the reason they cannot see is that they have CLOSED their eyes. They are to blame. You will notice that both do NOT see. But in the case of the ignorant, they have no ability to see, for there is no light. The other group, however, do not see because they REFUSE to see. This is much different.

Thus, there are two groups who do not see: Those who cannot see, and those who refuse to see. There are probably others who do see, but refuse what they see. But I think that most people who teach error COULD see. But they will not see – by their own choice. This is a hardness of heart – an evil eye. They will not come into the light because their deeds are evil. The light does not jive with their agenda. So they dismiss the Truth and call it error.

Yet all of this simply confirms the words of Jesus. It is our WILL and INTENT – unto the Lord – that determines how we see Him. In the end, it comes down to that – and if we continue, this affects our present condition, and it determines the future access given to the Holy Spirit. To the extent that we are playing games with God, and twisted in our relationship towards Him, our teaching will be twisted. Or our doctrine will be twisted. Or our attitude will be twisted. The moral twist and darkness WILL show. I have even known of some teachers who actually teach good stuff, but who, if you knew them, have terrible attitudes towards God and man. The problem here isn’t so much in the spoken doctrine. But it is in the LIVED doctrine. This problem comes from something wrong between themselves and God. Again – at some point, it always shows.

Well, God is faithful. When Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all Truth – He was talking about showing us the Truth about our present relationship with God, and about leading into a TRUE relationship with God. So no matter where we are in this, the Holy Spirit is seeking to make it all in accordance with the Truth.

For example, it is SO easy to walk around parroting sound doctrine, and to convince yourself that this means you are right with God, or some big shot spiritually. And surely, sound doctrine is good. But God has a way of trying every single aspect of our faith. If our faith is real, it will be strengthened. If it is not, we will fall.

But again, if you think I’m talking merely about doctrines, you will miss the point. God isn’t so much trying whether we believe the doctrine – that is included as a secondary issue. But more importantly, God tries our relationship with HIMSELF, which is reflected in our doctrine. For example, I may teach Romans 6, 7, and 8. But do I actually believe what is taught there – and have I experienced that Truth. The fire will try me. It will prove me.

Now, if you go back to what I said earlier about the need to DIE in order to see the Truth, you will note that this is exactly what I am talking about. You can read Romans 6-8 and apprehend it intellectually. You might even rejoice in the fact that you do. You might even teach what you understand to others. But then God might allow a trial where every word in those chapters becomes experienced and tested. Will you allow God to make YOU a living epistle of those teachings? If you do open yourself to Him, then you will SEE what you grasped intellectually. You will no longer have a faith in doctrines and teachings, but your faith will be in Christ Himself – the doctrines coming in along side of Him as the explanation.

But there are many who WILL NOT submit to the Truth in this way. So they emerge as walking encyclopedias of Bible doctrine, get set up as leaders and teachers, but have not personally submitted themselves to the Truth. In the end, it all comes down to the PERSONAL CROSS, and my PERSONAL relationship with Christ. It comes down to whether I have personally and individually come to the Cross. If I have not, what I am building is NOT eternal.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, as the case may be, God has already stated loud and clear that the Holy Spirit is going to seek to lead us into all Truth. Can we now see that this isn’t a matter of the Holy Spirit reciting to us information and doctrines? No. It is a matter of the Holy Spirit doing whatever is necessary to MAKE US TRUE unto God, and a matter of making us into LIVING epistles. And if the Holy Spirit does that, then the end result is NOT going to be about how great a teacher I am, or how faithful I am to God. It is going to be about how faithful God is to me.

Have we seen yet that all of us are but empty, hollow shells, who need delivered from ourselves, back into a relationship with God? We are the earthen vessels. He is to be the treasure. Why do so many professing Christians continue to think that we are the treasure, and that Jesus does little more than AUGMENT us? Utter nonsense, and really, this kind of teaching is the result of never having come to terms with the Cross of Jesus Christ.

God says, "Come into the Light. If you do, you will see the Truth about yourself, and about My Son." Are we willing? Or must we continue to insist on a God that caters to our delusion of self-importance? Must we hold to our position, importance, and need for validation? Well, if we would see the Truth, all of that would fade away. We would be so taken up with Jesus Christ that no longer would we be tormented by those deceptions.

God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. Well, what if there is darkness in us – a darkness that is the result of REFUSING the light? John answers that question. He says, "If we say we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the Truth." Then John says, "BUT if we walk in the light, as HE is in the light, we have fellowship one with another." The importance of this issue is the importance of fellowship with God. You cannot ignore, neglect, or belittle the Truth and think you have fellowship with God. HE IS THE TRUTH. We need to come to terms with this fact.

The fact that Paul prayed that we might SEE means that it is God’s will that we SEE. God wants us to KNOW HIM – and to be governed by that knowledge. There is nothing more important, once we are saved, but that we might know God. What we know and what we believe about God is going to determine how we think, and ultimately, how we act.

And within the context of knowing God, what else does God want us to know" Paul told us, "that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power." These are eternal purposes, all of which emerge from a knowing of Jesus Christ.