Our hearts are united together as we pray, yes sing, that our Lord would speak to us this hour from His Holy Word. We prayed that the Lord would take His truth and "plant it deep in us" so that we would be made to look like Christ, and we asked the Lord to continue to speak to us "until His Church is built and the earth is filled with His glory."
Yes, our hearts cry out together united in this prayer song of Illumination, and I am confident that many of you have prayed individually in a similar way, because the heart that is alive to Christ is a heart that yearns for the Lord to speak to it.
What are we asking the Lord to do in us, right here, today, as we read His Word and hear it preached? Why are we so bold to request this from our Sovereign Lord? Our examples and instruction come directly from the Scriptures.
In the Old testament the psalmist gives a similar cry when he sings to God:
Psalm 119:18 Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.
Jesus admonishes his disciples with these words concerning the Holy Spirit:
John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Yes, illumination, the Lord speaking to us, is a Trinitarian work of God. God the Father will send the Holy Spirit to His people in the name of the Lord Jesus, for His sake, and for His glory.
Jesus further explains to His disciples that the Holy Spirit will speak only what he hears from the Son:
John 16:13-14 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.
The apostle Paul exhorts the Corinthians explaining to them the essential work of the Holy Spirit in opening the eyes and ears of people to the see and hear the Wisdom of God:
1 Corinthians 2:9-12 as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him" - 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
It is this work of the Holy Spirit for which we cry out to God. We are desperately in need of the Spirit to open our eyes, to teach us and speak to us the Words of our Lord Jesus. So that we begin to grasp and understand the deep things of God which Has given to us . . . So that we might understand our salvation, our forgiveness, and what it is to submit to Jesus as Lord. We cry out for this Trinitarian work of God to take place in us today.
Speak, O Lord . . . Open Our Eyes, Spirit Divine.