God has ordained that spiritual illumination come to the reading of the Bible when you think about what you're reading.

God has ordained that spiritual illumination and that a sight of glory that evidences itself as divine and true and valuable and desirable will come to you through the vehicle of thinking.

I've had the experience, and I'm guessing you have to, of reading a paragraph in the Bible and when I get to

the end going I have no idea what I've just read because I really wasn't paying attention.

I'm Dan Kruver in this episode of light and truth. John Piper opens Psalm 119 verse 18 to show

the importance of thinking when reading scripture,

and he begins by reflecting on what was going through his mind while they were singing before

he began to preach. This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on January 11th,

1998.

You know, I was sitting here as we were singing, and it occurred to me that the human mind is an absolute mystery.

It's an absolute mystery.

Can any of you possibly explain?

Having lived for me 52 years and stocked up thousands and thousands of experiences in my mind,

which are all there, scientists tell me, and I believe that. They're all there in some kind of chemical, electronic circuitry, and hundreds of Bible verses are there.

How does it work that one thing comes to mind and not another thing?

I mean, when you pray, I didn't have any notes here to pray for Sharr.

I've had any plans.

I've just done this so often.

I can do this.

I can pray for people.

But I'm not just doing it. I'm whispering to my mind,

Lord, what does she need? What does people need to hear? And I'm just waiting, but my waiting is not a

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