Ignorance – Matt & Shera Dahlitz

Posted on July 28th, 2010

Simply not knowing about what’s available on this side of the cross can cause us to miss the fullness of what’s available. I (Matt) remember an elderly man in Kenya exclaiming “No one ever told me that Jesus heals!” after he had been ministered to and received healing. Knowledge is powerful. If only that old man had known years earlier that Jesus is the healer.

Once we have been born again into this side of the cross, there are many things to discover and grow into. We discover more of what it is to live on this side as we study the Word of God, listen to the promptings and revelations of the Holy Spirit and the instruction of anointed teachers, and simply spend time communicating with God. We gain both an intellectual knowledge of God, His Kingdom, and ourselves, as well as an experiential knowledge of life and intimacy with God.

Some things, the essential things we need, are given to us without much effort on our part. But as we grow to hunger for the deeper things of the Spirit, for the ‘hidden’ things of God, then we have to apply some effort to search. As Bill Johnson so often reminds us, God does not hide Himself from us in order to remain hidden, but rather to engage us in the ultimate search for the ultimate treasure. It is His joy to see us actively engaged in a search for the hidden things, for the unanswered questions, unrealised victories, and the deepest and highest revelations of Who He is.

But what if we are not bothered to discover any more than what is spoon-fed to us without any effort on our part? Ignorance will remain. We are all ignorant to some degree, we are all at different stages of discovery. The thing is, we can’t act on something we know nothing about. You can’t expect to walk into a job as a lawyer if you never bothered to study beyond high school. You would be ignorant of a whole lot of things that are pertinent to the law practice.

As you spend quality time with God, quieting you own mind to find out what’s on His mind, you become acquainted with His voice. You start to discover, not only information, but intimacy and an experiential knowing of Who He is. Ignorance is dispelled, by degrees, and the fullness of living on this side of the cross starts to open up like never before. You can start to act on new information, with a new sensitivity to His voice, with a new understanding of His ways. What happens is your eyes become clearer, the eyes of your heart, and you start to see more with more focus. And if you can see something, you increase your ability to apprehend it.

Through lives lived in ignorance, the contrast between the two sides of the cross is blurred. The opportunities freely available to us today are not realised, not grasped, and not experienced. Jesus said we will do greater things than He did, yet many of us don’t have any idea that we are called to per-form miracles today.

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