When I first started hearing the word “revelation” in Bible college, I thought it was only for the super-dupers, the super-spiritual. It was something far-fetched and way out of reach for little old me. What I didn’t realize was that a lack of revelation is why for so many years of my healing journey I quoted the Scriptures and nothing happened. A lack of revelation left me disappointed in my beliefs, left me sick and hurting, left me questioning the ability of my God, left me questioning His willingness to heal me and my worthiness to receive His healing.
A lack of revelation left me believing that I was waiting on God to heal me, when in fact, He had healed me two thousand years ago on the Cross and was waiting for me to receive it.
When I first started Bible college, I didn’t even know what it meant to “have a revelation.” When I would ask those around me what they meant by “I got a revelation on this,” these are the most common answers I received: “A light bulb went on and I get it now.” And “I don’t know how I know; I just know.” And my all-time favorite, “I just know that I know that I know it in my knower.” Huh? What does that mean?!? Those definitions were not very helpful to me at all as I was trying to figure out how to get revelation of my own. What’s funny is, now that I’ve had revelation of my own, my definition isn’t much better!
Teresa’s definition of Revelation: The Word coming alive in you, becoming yours, and becoming so real to you that nothing can convince you otherwise.
It doesn’t matter what anyone tells you, what your bank statement tells you, what the doctors tell you, or even what your body tells you, because you know the truth and you will not be moved.
Revelation produces unwavering confidence and faith in the face of any circumstance.
Once I started receiving revelation, everything changed. I started to see my body change. I started to see my circumstances change. I started to see my marriage change. It will be the same for you if you’ll take what I’ve written, apply it to your own life and make it your own. If you only read this and don’t do anything with it, this article will only serve as regurgitated revelation, and nothing will change for you. You have to take the principles within and make them yours. I believe God’s favorite way for His children to receive is through revelation of His Word, because once you get it that way, nothing can ever take it away from you.
The first revelation I ever received – Drumroll, please! – was that I had no real revelation of my own. As I reflected on my Christian walk, I could see very clearly that I had spent the majority of that walk trying to receive off of another person’s revelation. I was searching within their revelation for my own healing, which is what I desperately needed at the time. As an example, I went to conferences on healing hoping to hear about some new method I hadn’t tried yet, or some secret ingredient I was missing that would get God to move on my behalf. I had people I knew who were anointed with the gift of healing pray for me, hoping that they would have the revelation needed to get me healed.
In the end, that pursuit was a big waste of time. Rather than trying to bootleg my healing off someone who’d gotten a revelation about it, I should have been looking to His Word to get a revelation of my own. Before you can start receiving revelation, you need to know what it is and where it comes from. Let’s start there.
The Old Testament prophets prophesied about this revelation knowledge that we, as New Testament believers, would walk in one day. Isaiah 54:13 says, All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. I love how it says that revelation knowledge will bring peace. It is so true. When you have revelation of God’s Word, you will have a peace that passes all understanding. People will look at you and ask, “How in the world are you not falling apart right now?” They might not understand, but you will know that it’s because of the revelation that you have.
The word “revelation” is only used ten times in the entire Bible, and all ten of those occurrences are in the New Testament. They are all the same Greek word apokalypsis and it has the meaning “a disclosure of truth, instruction, concerning divine things before unknown…given to the soul by God himself…especially through the operation of the Holy Spirit, and so to be distinguished from other methods of instruction” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). We see three main components within that definition of revelation: Revelation shows you something you didn’t know before (that’s kind of obvious); it is given to your soul, your mind (we’ll explore that more in Revealing Revelation); and it is given through the working of the Holy Spirit, not through traditional methods of instruction.
Since we’re going to address the soul component in the next teaching, we’ll focus on revelation being the job of the Holy Spirit. I’m going to let Scripture speak for itself here in 1 Corinthians 2:7-13:
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 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.”
Now, a lot of people stop right there and don’t read on. If you don’t read on, you will focus on the underlined parts (underlines mine), and you will believe that revelation knowledge is not for you. I’m sorry, but that’s taking the easy way out. It takes all responsibility off of you to seek after the deeper things of God, the wisdom of God. Let’s read on:
10 But God has revealed them–
What is the “them” this verse is referring to? It’s a direct reference back to the wisdom of God, the mystery, the hidden wisdom talked about in verse 7. This hidden wisdom wasn’t hidden from you, but for you. And how does He reveal His wisdom to you?
10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit 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.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
He reveals His wisdom through the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit knows the things of God. You have been given the Holy Spirit and He will teach you what is in the Spirit of God! Did you get it? You have the Holy Spirit, so you have the wisdom of God, the knowledge of God, on the inside of you in the person of the Holy Spirit. His job is to reveal God’s wisdom to you and to teach you all things (John 14:26).
John 16:13 says,However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth. John 17:17 tells us that “thy word is truth.” So, the Spirit will guide you in the truth of the Word. He is in charge of helping you understand the scriptures that you read. He is there to help you peal back the onion layers to reveal the deeper, stronger truths underneath.
Let’s read on in John 16:14-15 – He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. That definitely sounds like revelation to me! He declares it to you. To you. Revelation knowledge is for you. It’s not just for pastors and the super-dupers. God wants to show you things in the Word that will change your life, and He does that through the operation of the Holy Spirit.
The great news is that because the Holy Spirit is the carrier of revelation and you have Him on the inside of you, you already have all the revelation you will ever need to live a victorious life. Believe it or not, you are not waiting on God to give you revelation. (That is a revelation in itself!) You already have it on the inside. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it to you in our next teaching, Receiving Revelation.