Crossing the Bridge from Head Knowledge to Revelation Knowledge
How many of us have been frustrated because we “knew” that we were healed by Jesus’ stripes, yet sickness remained? Many times, people have a head knowledge of the Word, but head knowledge won’t get the job done. You may have discovered this already!
There is such a thing as mental assent that is not faith. Mental assent agrees with the Bible that healing belongs to you. Faith TAKES that healing when you pray. The biggest difference between mental assent and faith is that mental assent does not act, but faith always acts. Faith without works is simply dead mental assent. Real faith always has corresponding works and words (James 2:14-26). Real faith would say, “I KNOW that I have received my healing no matter what my body is telling me right now.” Mental assent would say, “Healing is mine, but I don’t understand why nothing is happening.”
Head knowledge says, “I UNDERSTAND it with my brain.” Revelation knowledge says, “I KNOW it in my knower!” When you KNOW that you are healed, you will not be rattled by physical evidence to the contrary, whereas head knowledge will throw in the towel and question why it didn’t work for you.
Head knowledge “receives” healing and then still sees you as laid up in bed for the next week. Revelation knowledge sees you as well and able to function as if you never had the illness. Both kinds of knowledge SEE something, but it is revelation knowledge that SEES you well. You have to SEE yourself well on the inside before you will ever SEE yourself well on the outside.
I’ve done an illustration while preaching to make this point. I will suddenly point at someone and ask, “Are you saved?” The person will respond without even stopping to think, “Yes!” I then point out that the person who responded did not have to stop and think for a minute what the Word said about his salvation. (“Let’s see, I’m saved if I confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead…I have confessed Him and I do believe that God raised Him from the dead, so…I guess I’d have to conclude that I am saved.”) Head knowledge has to stop and ponder things over. Revelation knowledge does not have to think – it knows! The old-timers talked about “know-so salvation” and you can have “know-so healing” as well.
If you KNOW that you’re saved, saying that you are saved is now a reflex reaction, not something you think about. You can get to the point where it is the same when you say that you are healed.
Are you frustrated because you have heard that you were healed by the stripes of Jesus, but you just don’t seem to be able to believe it? All of us have been there at some point. I know I have! There is a missing link to get from having heard that healing is yours to actually being able to believe it and receive healing for yourself.
That missing link is meditation on the Word. The Bible way to get a revelation, not just head knowledge, of the Word is to spend time meditating on (thinking, muttering to yourself) the Word. I am not talking about some weird eastern religion here. When you bring up the word “meditation” people think about getting into the Lotus Position, chanting a meaningless syllable and emptying their minds. That’s cult meditation that just invites demons. Biblical meditation RENEWS and FILLS your mind with something; it doesn’t EMPTY it. Scriptural meditation is muttering and contemplating what God says. It’s like taking a nugget from the Word and chewing on it and then chewing on it some more. You keep pondering what the Word says. You let it not depart from before your eyes and keep it in the midst of your heart (see Proverbs 4:20-22). You think about it day and night (Psalm 1:1-3, Joshua 1:7-8). That’s how you get it to really become part of you. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, not by hearing it once and never bothering to hear it again because now you think you know it.
This is not simply a nice suggestion. It is a requirement for anyone desiring godly success in life.
Joshua 1:7-8:
Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
You succeed in life when you do God’s will. To do God’s will, you must fill your mind with what His will is, so that when the pressure is on, you know what to do and do it. Then you make your own way prosperous.
Notice that Joshua was not to let the book of the Law depart from his mouth. Of course, this means that he was supposed to speak the words contained in the book, not that he was supposed to run around like a dog with the actual book of the Law in his mouth. Joshua was supposed to continually speak the Word of God.
This is what you should do, too. Continually reflect on God’s Word. If you need healing, you should major on Scriptures about healing. However, God told Joshua to do all the Law, not just its healing part, if he wanted to succeed. Quoting healing verses while refusing to walk in love is not a recipe for successful living.
It is up to you, not God, whether or not you meditate on His word and prosper. If you refuse to pay close attention to His words because you’re always “too busy,” don’t blame God when you don’t seem able to get anywhere in your faith walk.
Paul prayed for the believers at Ephesus that God would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him (Ephesians 1:15-23). He didn’t just pray that God would give them intellectual head knowledge. Paul’s prayer is one that you can – and SHOULD – pray for yourself often. God will answer it, and the results can be life-changing as you get revelation of His Word.
Finally, make sure that you are a doer of the Word and not a hearer only. God did not promise Joshua success if he only meditated on the Word. He had to do it. So do you. But doing it becomes easier once you fill your heart with it.
I am not discounting the fact that God gave you a brain and He wants you to think. After all, you do have to think to read this book, or read the Bible for that matter. But revelation knowledge already knows what to think. By the way, I am not treating “revelation knowledge” the way the term is used in some circles to describe revelation outside of the Bible. I am talking about revelation knowledge OF the Bible!
So the bridge we are crossing is the bridge from KNOWING INTELLECTUALLY that you are healed to SEEING yourself healed. So how do you change what you are seeing? Should you exert extra, incredible willpower to “see” yourself differently? That’s precisely what some people think (whether they admit it or not) and they just end up frustrated trying through their own human effort to see themselves as Scripture sees them. That isn’t a bridge; it’s a dead-end road.
If you will continue in the Word, you will begin to see yourself as the healed defending your inheritance, not as the sick struggling to break into the land of the healed. It will take time. If it happened instantly, there would be no need to meditate on the Word. But if you keep the Word before you, your thinking and then your reflexes will change. If someone were to approach you and say, “Are you healed?” you would be able to answer “Yes!” without having to think about it just as easily as you would say “Yes!” if someone asked you if you are going to heaven.