THEN THEIR EYES WERE OPENED...

Luke 24:31-32
"Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?””

As Jesus spoke to them, explaining the prophecies about His death and resurrection, He also speaks to us, revealing His Word for our understanding. He opens our spiritual eyes so we may know Him and understand what His Word says, by speaking to our hearts. When God quickens His Word, we feel His fire in the “inward man of our heart” and we can understand why the disciples said that their “hearts burned within” themselves, while Jesus spoke to them and “opened the Scriptures” explaining their true meaning. The verses that the Lord explains to us, become “living and powerful” in our hearts and give us the strength and trust to move forward and accomplish what He is asking us to do, even if by human logic it seems impossible. This is the kind of word reference in Hebrews 4:12. The words that have helped me grow in faith and are transforming my life to become more like Jesus, are those that He has quickened my heart with. The joy and excitement that come from these kinds of revelations are beyond any type of “worldly happiness” and make us want more of God's presence and to get deeper in His Word asking the Holy Spirit to teach us more! The hunger and passion to study the Bible is rooted in these types of revelations that we receive while spending quality time with our Lord.

1 Corinthians 2:9-10, 12-13
"But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God...

12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

What are these verses really saying? Verse 9 is quoted by some of those who believe that the Spiritual gifts ceased once the apostles died, to prove that God stopped speaking to us, His children, because we now have the written form of the New Testament and that is all we need. But the following verses demonstrate exactly the opposite. Through the Holy Spirit, God has revealed the mysteries of the spiritual world to the early Church and continues to do the same for us today. The same Holy Spirit that came down upon them at the Pentecost, lives in our hearts today and there are no verses in the Bible anywhere that say that the gifts and the ministries of the Holy Spirit ever stopped. In the article “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” this subject is explained in more detail, including 1 Corinthians 13:8, which references the time when Jesus will come with clouds to Rapture His Church (vs. 10) and when the Holy Spirit will leave the earth together with God's saints naturally causing the end of the spiritual gifts. We have so much proof in the body of Christ today with the miracles that the Holy Spirit is working through God's children and how He continues to speak and bring revelation to those who seek God with all their hearts.

Carmen Pușcaș