Quotations from the writings of Ellen G. White with the phrase . . .
S P I R I T U A L u n d e r s t a n d i n g ( 4 RELATED PHRASES ) |
The phrase 'spiritual understanding' appears 132 times in the published writings of EGW See page on Original website Related Phrase: spiritual perception ( ) - - spiritual knowledge ( ) - - men of spiritual understanding ( 4 ) ( below ) - - understanding of spiritual things ( )
| A well-balanced work can be carried on best in the cities when a Bible school for the training of workers is in progress while public meetings are being held. Connected with this training school or city mission should be experienced laborers of deep spiritual understanding, who can give the Bible workers daily instruction, and who can also unite wholeheartedly in the general public effort. And as men and women are converted to the truth, those standing at the head of the mission should, with much prayer, show these new converts how to experience the power of the truth in their hearts. Such a mission, if conducted by those who know how to manage wisely, will be a light shining in a dark place.—Gospel Workers, 364, 365 { Ev 108.1}
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God fixes no limit to the advancement of those who desire to be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” Through prayer, through watchfulness, through growth in knowledge and understanding, they are to be “strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power.” Thus they are prepared to work for others. It is the Saviour’s purpose that human beings, purified and sanctified, shall be His helping hand. For this great privilege let us give thanks to Him who “hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.” { AA 478.3} Read entire Chapter 45 |
| Many professed Christians do not labor perseveringly. They make too little effort, and are not ready and willing to deny self. The prayer of the living Christian will be “to be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom, and spiritual understanding, that they may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering, with joyfulness.” “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” { ApM 32.2 }
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| A well-balanced work can be carried on best when a training school for Bible workers is in progress. While the public meetings are being held, connected with this training school or city mission should be experienced laborers of deep spiritual understanding, who can give the Bible workers daily instruction, and who can also unite wholeheartedly in the general public effort being put forth. And as men and women are converted to the truth, those standing at the head of the city mission should, with much prayer, show these new converts how to experience the power of the truth in their lives. This united effort on the part of all the workers would be as a nail driven in a sure place.—Testimonies for the Church 9:111, 112. { CME 19.5 } also { GW 364.3}
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| A well-balanced work can be carried on best when a training school for Bible workers is in progress. While the public meetings are being held, connected with this training school or city mission should be experienced laborers of deep spiritual understanding, who can give the Bible workers daily instruction, and who can also unite wholeheartedly in the general public effort being put forth.—Testimonies for the Church 9:111. { ChS 143.5} |
| God wants the teachers in our schools to be efficient. If they are advanced in spiritual understanding, they will feel that it is important that they should not be deficient in the knowledge of the sciences. Piety and a religious experience lie at the very foundation of true education. But let none feel that having an earnestness in religious matters is all that is essential in order to become educators. While they need no less of piety, they also need a thorough knowledge of the sciences. This will make them not only good, practical Christians, but will enable them to educate the youth, and at the same time they will have heavenly wisdom to lead them to the fountain of living waters. He is a Christian who aims to reach the highest attainments for the purpose of doing others good. Knowledge harmoniously blended with a Christlike character will make a person truly a light to the world. God works with human efforts. All those who give all diligence to make their calling and election sure, will feel that a superficial knowledge will not fit them for positions of usefulness. Education balanced by a solid religious experience, fits the child of God to do his appointed work steadily, firmly, understandingly. If one is learning of Jesus, the greatest educator the world ever knew, he will not only have a symmetrical Christian character, but a mind trained to effectual labor. Minds that are quick to discern will go deep beneath the surface. { CE 51.1 } also { FE 119.1 }
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| Paul in his letter to the Colossians sets forth the rich blessings granted to the children of God. He says: We “do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.” Colossians 1:9-11. { GC 476.1} Read entire Chapter 27
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| Those who have taken part in the solemn rite of baptism have pledged themselves to seek for those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God; pledged themselves to labor earnestly for the salvation of sinners. God asks those who take His name, How are you using the powers that have been redeemed by the death of My Son? Are you doing all in your power to rise to a greater height in spiritual understanding? Are you adjusting your interests and actions in harmony with the momentous claims of eternity? { MYP 317.1} |
| The apostle has presented before us the importance of making continual advancement in the Christian life. There is no excuse for our lack of spiritual understanding. The successive steps in the path of progress are stated in the exhortation of the text, and we must take these steps if we fulfill the requirement of God, and become fitted for the heavenly courts. The work of progress is not left wholly dependent on our weak human efforts; but as we endeavor to walk in the footsteps of the Redeemer, divine strength will be imparted, that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us. Help has been laid upon One who is mighty to save, and as we strive to add these virtues, He will multiply grace, according to our need, from His own divine sufficiency. { PCP 16.1 }
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| In Isaiah’s day the spiritual understanding of mankind was dark through misapprehension of God. Long had Satan sought to lead men to look upon their Creator as the author of sin and suffering and death. Those whom he had thus deceived, imagined that God was hard and exacting. They regarded Him as watching to denounce and condemn, unwilling to receive the sinner so long as there was a legal excuse for not helping him. The law of love by which heaven is ruled had been misrepresented by the archdeceiver as a restriction upon men’s happiness, a burdensome yoke from which they should be glad to escape. He declared that its precepts could not be obeyed and that the penalties of transgression were bestowed arbitrarily. { PK 311.1} |
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| We can learn precious lessons from the study of the life of Christ. The envious Pharisees misinterpreted the acts and words of Christ, which, if properly received, would have been beneficial to their spiritual understanding. Instead of admiring His goodness, they charged Him, in the presence of His disciples, with impiety — “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” ( Matthew 9:11). Instead of addressing our blessed Saviour Himself, whose answer would at once have convicted them of their malice, they talked with the disciples, and made their charges where, as a leaven of evil, they would do great harm. If Christ had been an impious man, He would have lost His hold upon the hearts of His believing followers. But because of their confidence in Christ, the disciples would not give ear to the insinuations of His wicked accusers. { 1SM 30.2}
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| Many professed Christians do not labor perseveringly. They make too little effort, and are not ready and willing to deny self. The prayer of the living Christian will be to “be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.” Colossians 1:9-11. “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:3. { SA 78.3 }
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| The life of a true Christian is ever onward. There is no standing still nor going back. It is your privilege to be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” { 2T 521.1}
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| Many of our brethren and sisters in New York have been backsliding upon health reform. There is but a small number of genuine health reformers in the state. Light and spiritual understanding have been given to the brethren in New York. But the truth that has reached the understanding, the light that has shone upon the soul, which has not been appreciated and cherished, will witness against them in the day of God. Truth has been given to save those who would believe and obey. Their condemnation is not because they did not have the light, but because they had the light and did not walk in it. { 3T 50.1}
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| God is not well pleased that His servants should be ignorant of His divine will, novices in spiritual understanding, but wise in worldly wisdom and knowledge. Your earthly interest can bear no comparison with your eternal welfare. God has a higher work for you to do than that of acquiring property. You need a deep and thorough work accomplished for you. Your entire family need it, and may God help you all to attain perfection of Christian character. Your children can and should be a blessing to the youth of your community. By their example, by their conversation and actions, they can glorify their heavenly Father and grace the cause of religion. { 4T 54.3} |
| Paul writes to his Colossian brethren: “As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ; who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit. [Not an unsanctified love of the smartness, ability, or oratory of the preacher, but a love born of the Spirit of God, which His servant represented in his words and character.] For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” { 4T 316.2}
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| Just before us is the closing struggle of the great controversy when, with “all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness,” Satan is to work to misrepresent the character of God, that he may “seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.” If there was ever a people in need of constantly increasing light from heaven, it is the people that, in this time of peril, God has called to be the depositaries of His holy law and to vindicate His character before the world. Those to whom has been committed a trust so sacred must be spiritualized, elevated, vitalized, by the truths they profess to believe. Never did the church more sorely need, and never was God more solicitous that she should enjoy, the experience described in Paul’s letter to the Colossians when he wrote: We “do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.” { 5T 746.1}
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Fitted for Translation — There is to be a people fitted up for translation to heaven, whom Enoch represents. They are looking and waiting for the coming of the Lord. The work will go on with all those who will cooperate with Jesus in the work of redemption. He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. God has made every provision that they should be intelligent Christians, filled with a knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. { TSB 86.3} |
| The great and essential knowledge is the knowledge of God and His Word.... There should be a daily increasing of spiritual understanding; and the Christian will grow in grace, just in proportion as he depends upon and appreciates the teaching of the Word of God, and habituates himself to meditate upon divine things. { AG 303.2} |
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m e n o f S P I R I T U A L u n d e r s t a n d i n g |
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| Bible Studies by Men of Spiritual Understanding — Hearts have been impressed, and souls converted, as you have presented the grand, testing truths of the Bible, the truths of the grace of Christ. There should now be connected with you in your labors, men of spiritual understanding, who will co-operate with you, who will in the daytime conduct Bible studies with the new converts, telling them how to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, that these souls may be fully and firmly established in the truth. They need personal instruction upon many matters.—Letter 376, 1906. { Ev 470.1}
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| Give Bible studies to the newly converted to fully and firmly establish them in the truth — Direct the mind to Him who guides and controls all things. Christ will be the manna and the spiritual dew to these newly converted souls. In Him is no darkness at all. As men of spiritual understanding conduct Bible studies with them, telling them how to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, that they may be fully and firmly established in the truth, the power of God will be revealed.—Evangelism, 284. { PaM 205.3}
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| Recognizing Fresh Displays of Conviction — To my ministering brethren I would say: Every fresh display of the conviction of the grace of God upon the souls of unbelievers, is divine. Everything that you can do to bring souls to a knowledge of the truth, is a means of allowing the light to shine, the light of the glory of God, as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Direct the mind to Him who guides and controls all things. Christ will be the manna and the spiritual dew to these newly converted souls. In Him is no darkness at all. As men of spiritual understanding conduct Bible studies with them, telling them how to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, that they may be fully and firmly established in the truth, the power of God will be revealed.—Manuscript 105, 1906. { Ev 284.3} |
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| The Lord desires those who take part in His work to be men of spiritual understanding, sensible men, who will follow His way and make known His will. Their voices are to be heard amid the din and confusion of unconsecration. Those in the synagogue of Satan will profess to be converted, and unless God’s servants have keen eyesight, they will not discern the working of the power of darkness. { 1MR 281.3 }
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