Christ’s disciples heard his word, but they did not understand it completely. This is the case with us, for we are not god in nature. We cannot know or examine the word of God in our human minds. Our human mind is limited and spiritually adulterous in the world shining thoughts and streams. It has become rather thick to hear the voice and message of the Holy Spirit.
However, the disciples were wise having admitted their ignorance and incomplete knowledge, and come to Jesus, the source of wisdom, asking him about the meaning, the power, and the design of his word.
Come to Christ in your secret prayers, and ask him about the meaning of his many words. Do not read the gospel haughtily, as if you were able to study the person of God, but pray humbly that he may enlighten you, and clarify his will to you. Keep his word in yourself that it may bear much fruit.
Jesus said to his asking disciples: “You have the right and the ability to hear the mystery of the kingdom of God, for you live near to the Son of God. His love, purity, power, and authority explain to you the word of God deeply and clearly. Those that come near Christ and stay with him become enlightened and worthy of seeing the glory of God. They show that they know God, that they have received of the Spirit of God, and that the divine image is stamped upon their souls.
But he who does not trust or love Jesus, refuses God himself, and becomes spontaneously hardened. This man who had already been outside the expanse of Christ, and came near to him, without giving himself, in fact, to him, but remained far away, will gradually fade away and lose the possibility of repentance. After all, he will not be able to enter into the kingdom of his Lord. Such people hear the word of the gospel in their own language. It rings into their ears as a strange code, but they do not understand it, nor does the spirit of the gospel enter into their minds.
Though Jesus spoke to them with parables, and produced the truth to their eyes, they did not want to be converted, but loved themselves, hated God, and did not ask forgiveness.
There is a horrible rule of spiritual life. Whoever accepts the divine life, and holds fast to Christ, grows up, and receives, in his self-denial, more blessing, services, and knowledge in the kingdom of God. But whoever closes his heart against the powerful word of God, and neglects it, loses the remaining vitality of his conscience. He strangles his conscience, and becomes spiritually dead. So, examine yourself. Are you spiritually growing up or decreasing?