Who Can Receive

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. (Isaiah 28:9)

At the heart of Isaiah 28:9 is a question every believer ought to pause and answer honestly. Who is God able to teach? Who can He bring into deeper knowledge and understanding of His ways? Isaiah answered clearly and plainly. It is those who have grown up, moved past the milk stage and pressed into something more substantial.

See, a nursing infant needs milk because that is all their system can handle. There is nothing wrong with milk for a baby. But if that child never progresses and years go by and they are still on milk when they should long since have moved to solid food, something has gone wrong. Growth was supposed to happen, and it did not. The same principle applies directly to the life of the believer.

The question of how light, revelation, and spiritual understanding come is one that serious believers need to wrestle with. It does not fall equally on everyone, regardless of where they are spiritually. God teaches knowledge to those who have developed the capacity to receive it. The more you grow in God, the more light can come your way. Spiritual maturity opens the door to deeper revelation. It works the other way, too. Remaining spiritually undeveloped keeps a lid on how much understanding you can walk in. This has nothing to do with how long you've been saved. Time in the church does not make you mature. It just makes you older in the church.

Growth comes from feeding on the Word, obedience, and pressing through hard seasons without walking away. Those things build spiritual capacity. And greater capacity means greater ability to receive what God wants to reveal. The Apostle Paul had to confront believers in Corinth about this very thing. He told them he could not speak to them as spiritually mature people because they were still operating like infants in Christ. That was not a compliment. It was a correction. God loves His children too much to leave them in an undeveloped state, but He cannot pour deep revelation into a vessel that has not been built to hold it.

Practical Application

The invitation today is to grow, to press past where you are comfortable and go deeper in God. The teaching is waiting. The revelation is available. The question is whether you have grown enough to receive it.

Hebrews 5:12; 1 Corinthians 3:1