This year is going to be a year of revelation!  We’ve been reminded of how transforming just one revelation from God can be.

Last week, we learned that one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to bring revelation to us.  We learned how to pray the perfect intercessory prayer without using even a single word; praying in the Spirit!  Praying in the Spirit is such an awesome privilege that we don’t take advantage of often enough.

Like Paul to the church in Corinth, we strongly encourage everyone to pray in the Spirit, sing in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, learn from the Spirit, and be led by the Spirit in every aspect of life.

However, the Spirit does more than just intercede for us in prayer through unintelligible sounds that we can’t understand.  The Holy Spirit also brings us knowledge and wisdom and a greater degree of understanding than we could ever possess on our own.  The Spirit brings understanding of not only spiritual things, but also of the natural world around us that He created including our relationships with others. 

God is constantly speaking and pouring out His revelation.  The question is, “Are we listening? Are we watching?”  If God is pouring out His life transforming revelation and we’re not receiving it; what could we be missing?

Matthew 13:13-14

13 …Though seeing, they do not see;

    though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

    you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

This thought crossed my mind when we were driving together as a family last week.  Nate is moving on into adulthood and as I was driving, I was sharing some financial advice.  As I was sharing some practical ways to budget so that we can pay all of our bills and still enjoy life, I stopped to ask what he thought.  After a long, awkward pause, I started to say his name.

Turns out, he had his earbuds in blasting music, bobbing his head, and didn’t hear a single word that I said.

How often does this happen with God and us?  How often is God pouring out life-changing wisdom right to us, but we’re too busy scrolling through our phones or watching TV or whatever else we distract ourselves with to receive it?

It’s like the old-school TV bunny-ear antennas or AM/FM radios or like the cellular data of today.  Radio towers all over the world are transmitting radio waves that travel all around us and even through our houses and bodies.  However, without having the right receiver to interpret and translate those radio wave signals, they go completely unnoticed by us. 

With the right cell phone, network access is granted and we are free to communicate.  Of course, that cell phone needs to be charged up, powered on, not in airplane mode, and within our reach to function as intended, right?

Everyone who has put their faith in Jesus for their salvation has received the Holy Spirit.  We have all that we need to freely communicate with God.  We have full access to His Kingdom resources.  The Holy Spirit is like that TV or radio or cell phone.

However, we have to choose to be filled with the Spirit just like our cell phone needs charged.  We have to choose to be trained in the Spirit just like we needed to learn how to use our cell phone.  We need to be intentional about being present in the Spirit’s Presence just like having our cell phone with us to be of any use to us.

If our cell phone battery is dead or we have no idea how to use it or if we leave it on our night stand at home, we’re missing out on what it offers to us.  It may be ours and it may grant us access to a world of knowledge and wisdom and resources and it may connect us to our loved ones, but it won’t be able to manifest any of these things unless we are intentional about using it.

Before going into more analogies, let’s go to our training manual of how to operate in the Spirit; the living word written by people as they were led