The Alpha of Spiritual Understanding

UV 3112/10000 The Alpha of Spiritual Understanding
Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.
Psalm 49 v 20
In the absence of spiritual understanding of who one is and who God is, human beings are no better than the beasts that die. In the absence of a personal relationship and all that this means, our lives are lived in vain. When we fear God to avoid evil and equally love Him to do good, we become both stable and able. We are both required by virtue of being God’s creatures endowed with reason, faith and conscience to be intellectually and emotionally and spiritually stable even as we are working on our skills and abilities. Leaders or managers are not respected or honoured just because they occupy positions but as they bring both honesty and ability to those positions.
People often rise to positions of leadership due to charisma or personal charm and ability but soon find that they do not have the accompanying understanding and matching character. When we know, understand and acknowledge God as the source of our abilities and our progress in life, we remain humble and humility is a sign of our understanding of where we stand in the big picture of life. Scripture, therefore exhorts us not to revel in wealth or wisdom or power or fame but to revel in the fact that we know, understand and acknowledge the Lord in all that we are, have and do.
The application of the principles embedded in scripture to life produces understanding, wisdom, power and eternal blessings. Scripture shows us how the Lord God related first to one human- Abraham, then to a couple- Abraham and Sarah, then to the immediate descendants of the couple, then to the twelve tribes of Israel, then to the nation of Israel and finally, through Jesus to the whole world. The vision of the Lord expands from one to many to everyone. Likewise, our spiritual understanding needs to expand from understanding ourselves to understanding the Tri-une God, to understanding our spouse, our children, our wider family or kith and kin, to understanding our colleagues, to understanding our friends and enemies, to understanding everyone we come across. We acknowledge the Lord as the source of our wisdom and lean not on our own understanding but increasingly depend on the wisdom of the Lord. We can enhance our spiritual understanding by praying, meditation, by reading and studying scripture, by seeking the gifts of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual principles are often counter intuitive, counter culture, against the tide. It implies a cost has to be paid and the rewards of keeping these are often not visible in the short run. But this is the way human beings as creatures and children of God are wired and nothing else works. Of course, we can choose to be a beast or choose to follow the Best- Jesus.