Many of us in the Lord receive dreams and visions, but without receiving interpretation we are void of understanding. In this teaching, I'm going to show you through the word of God how to not only receive interpretations, but how to flow in them.
Basics of "Knowledge"
Before we get started, we need to know what a few words mean, because it's by our words we receive and communicate information. In 1 Corinthians 12, God's word lists out a few gifts of the Holy Spirit, but I want to point out two. The word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, and one that isn't mentioned in this passage, but is seen in Joseph's bloodline, the gift of understanding.
Wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, what's the difference? The gift of wisdom is when God gives his word out of his infinite and perfect experience to know what should be done. The gift of a word of knowledge is God giving a word that only tells someone what is, exclusively information. The gift of understanding is God revealing knowledge or wisdom and giving the reason for it. Quick overview:
Wisdom knows how through experience
Knowledge knows what through information
Understanding knows why through perfection
When we get a dream or vision from God, our first thought is to ask God what it meant, and you're really asking for understanding. 2 Chronicles 26:5 Zechariah had the gift of understanding to know the meaning of all visions of the Lord, but we in Christ have unfiltered access to God himself. Matthew 7:7 "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:"
Which means we aren't locked out if we don't have a gift! In my personal experience, not having a spiritual gift means it'll take a bit more time before receiving an answer.
Lord I don't mind waiting!
Amen!🎺
He will respond!✅
Do you... believe?
So how do we receive an interpretation? The answer is simple, believe... Let me explain.
We need to understand how words are processed in the flesh and spirit. Our body parts are portals to the spirit. Your mouth is a portal to a place in the spirit, and your stomach is a portal in the spirit. This truth applies to the different parts in our bodies.
Job 12:11 "Doth not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat?"
This verse connects the dots for us, our spiritual ears are eating words in the same way our physical mouths are eating food. Revealing to us, our physical ears are portals to our spiritual mouths. The inverse of this is also true, our physical mouths are portals to our spiritual ears. Quick breakdown:
Physical ears ➡️ Spiritual mouth
Physical mouth ➡️ Spiritual ears
This is why Ezekiel ate the scroll in Ezekiel 3, he first ate it in the spirit, then was given understanding. His spirit ate and the interpretation of the scroll was revealed in the next verses 4-11.
Eating the interpretation
A deeper look into this chapter gives us more insight into how our spirit receives revelation. God tells Ezekiel in Eze. 3:3 "... cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee..." God tells Ezekiel to cause the scroll to go to his belly, but remember Ezekiel is in the spirit! So this is his spiritual belly, and what happens after this "spiritual digestion" is understanding. The contents of the roll were revealed when Ezekiel's spiritual stomach digested God's scroll.
What does it mean to digest something in the spirit? Believe... When you choose to believe in something of God, He then brings the understanding. This applies to visions, dreams, words, and The Word of God. We even have another example of this wisdom in Acts 8:30-31.
When the Ethiopian was reading the word aloud, God sent his apostle Philip to give him the understanding of God's word, "Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? 31 And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him."
The Ethiopian believed God's word but didn't have the Holy Spirit to give him the revelation, so God sent Philip to give him the understanding of what he was reading, "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter... he eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus."
Don't fear the faith!
Do you see what faith and a bit of patience does? We don't need to fully understand what the Word is saying, we just need to believe it and the Holy Spirit will do the rest. The biggest thing that blocks our understanding with the things of God is fear. There is a tendency to stray away from believing dreams or visions because there is a fleshly interpretation skewing in fear. This even applies when reading the Word, people get fearful when God's word doesn't line up with their doctrine but it's this fear that is making us a slave to ignorance.
In every place God's word gives a dream and interpretation, it makes no sense! But that's the point, it's not going to make sense because it needs to be revealed, and before that you need to believe!
How to recieve, and believe!
No matter how chaotic a dream, vision, or word might seem, stop yourself from coming to a conclusion, believe it's of God, and wait for understanding. You might be wondering, "what if it's not of God and I end up believing a lie?" This is a very valid question, and God has a hidden "safty feature" to faith, it also reveals lies!
Even the act of faith has a supernatural promise in it. In 1 Corinthians 13, God's word describes the power of virtue, 1 Cor. 13:7 "Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." The description of this virtue is that it believes all things, but it's not saying for us to seek all information from all sources and believe that.
What it's saying is that when something is presented before us, and we don't have doubts or assumptions against it, God reveals to us the truth.