The wisdom of the fathers
THE SPIRIT OF WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING

Although Paul had been teaching the Ephesians for two years everything that was to know for their sanctification and perfection, without holding anything back, he still found it necessary to ask for in daily prayer for the Church, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding - which goes to show that mere intellectual knowledge and heart-knowledge are very different propositions.
(Eph. 1.17-18)
Most of us know the difference. How many Bible passages we knew by heart (not heart knowledge), even before our conversion, and still they were a closed book to us until after, when the Holy Spirit gave us light to understand their true meaning. Gradually we began to "know" already well-known verses and so they became our practical possession. We find in the Bible that the terms "knowledge" and growth and sanctification are closely related. This is the truth, for this knowledge means an assimilation of divine things, just as our body takes in food and transforms it into flesh and blood. The "pure milk of the Word of God" makes us grow. Knowledge and growth are intimately connected, like life and breathing; and all knowledge points to Christ Himself and His finished work of salvation. Christ is the bread of life we eat in spirit, so that He may live His life in us, for spirit, soul and body, until the rapture of our body, which is just the appearance and conclusion of a process, that had been gradually taken place.

We could be compared to slaves who have been set free, but still don't dare to leave their master - the devil - because we are so conditioned in our thinking from childhood on, to be enslaved by fear of death. Gradually it dawn on us, what Christ has done and that we have been ransomed and our rightful owner has changed.
We have been freed from the oppressive servitude of Satan, to now serve willingly, in God's love, our new Lord and Master, Christ.
It may take some time until our mind has taken this in and we fully appropriate this fact for ourselves. "I am redeemed and therefore my sin is in the grave of Jesus." When we persist unshakably in this position toward Satan and fight the good fight of faith, in defiance of all appearances, the gruel slave-driver must retreat. This is the beginning of our personal war of liberation.
"I am redeemed and therefore the humility of Christ dwells in me." Precious child of God, do you have the courage to answer Satan this way, after he shot an fiery arrow of prideful thought into your mind? You may tremble, but you won't be protected from such arrows until you take heart and consider and treat the humility of Jesus - which is yours through the complete redemption - as your possession.
Have courage by counting on the courage of Jesus in you. Without courage the good fight of faith can't be fought, as it says in Rev. 21: the cowardly will suffer eternal destruction. Oh curse on all human piety and self-righteousness that trust appearances and want to be wiser than the Word of God. Take heart, oh soul, and seize all the virtues and strengths of Jesus as your rightful possessions. Break through to freedom, even from sickness and death. Have you not seen yet that sickness and death are the result of sin and that "life and immortality have been brought to light through the Gospel?" (2. Tim.10)
Listen carefully to the guidance of your God and fight the good fight of faith and He will show you His way in His Word.
(by Margarethe von Brasch)