Reading: “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened”—Ephesians 1:18

Two things are indispensable to vision— sight and light. A blind man cannot perceive objects even though the mid-day sun is shining. Likewise, the strongest eyes are useless when a person is in the dark. For a person to see he needs both light and sight. This is true for spiritual vision as well as physical vision.

Spiritually speaking, all are born in a state of spiritual blindness and in spiritual darkness. Man in his natural state is alienated from Him who is called the Light of the world; therefore, he walks in darkness. Darkness in Scripture, among other things, is a symbol of ignorance.

At regeneration, the objects of sovereign grace are brought out of darkness into God’s marvelous light and are given “an understanding, that we may know him that is true” (1 John 5:20) As children of light we have the capacity to discern, understand, and enjoy spiritual things.

That being said, however, because ignorance, prejudice, pride, and carnality ever tend to cloud our vision as long as we remain in this world, we stand in constant need of having the eyes of our understanding enlightened afresh. We need often to pray like David, “Open thou mine eyes.”

Someone has defined knowledge as “the process of passing from the unconscious state of ignorance to the conscious state of ignorance.” Strive to have the eyes of your understanding enlightened. How do you go about it? Make it the subject of fervent prayer. Now when was the last time you prayed that your eyes would be opened?

“Ignorance does not know that it does not know. True knowledge does not know and knows it.”—John MacArthur