Spiritual Deafness

1 Corinthians 2

"The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." (v. 10b-14)

Jesus knew that we needed a Helper to guide and encourage us in our walk with the Father. The Spirit of God now lives in us so we can understand the will of the Father, and so we may grow spiritually. However, many of us continue to struggle with the Spirit within us. The desires of our heart is in conflict with what the Spirit tells us. More tragic is when we may have accepted the Spirit of God into our lives, but we ignore the Spirit. In many cases, we may not have fully understood or grasped what it meant to have the Spirit live in us, and therefore allowed the conflict to grow which eventually leads to spiritual deafness. We are then no different than the person who does not have the Spirit within him. In fact, we may be considered to be worse since we have "tasted the goodness" and yet decide to ignore it.

Therefore, let us not ignore the Spirit and let His words fall on deaf ear. Let us feed our Spirit through the reading of Scripture, prayer, and our worship, and let us focus on His words. In doing so, we will eliminate confusion and the struggle within, and freely live according to His ways.