What Is Revelation?

I was asked this question the other day, so I thought I would post the answer here.

What is revelation?

I mentioned here that you must have revelation in order to have breakthrough or victory.

But what is revelation?

Revelation in English comes from the root word reveal. When something is revealed to you, you have a greater understanding. If a covered plate is in front of you and then becomes uncovered, the contents are revealed and so you have understanding of what is on the plate. We could also say that understanding is to comprehend something.

So let's look up a scripture that uses the word comprehend.

Ephesians 3:14-19

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

The English word comprehend here is katalambano in the original Greek. Strong's gives this definition -

1) to lay hold of

a) to lay hold of so as to make one's own, to obtain, attain to, to make one's own, to take into one's self, appropriate

b) to seize upon, take possession of

1) of evils overtaking one, of the last day overtaking the wicked with destruction, of a demon about to torment one

2) in a good sense, of Christ by his holy power and influence laying hold of the human mind and will, in order to prompt and govern it

c) to detect, catch

d) to lay hold of with the mind

1) to understand, perceive, learn, comprehend

I especially like "to make one's own" and "to lay hold of with the mind." This same Greek word is also translated elsewhere as apprehend. I think this is the best word yet. To apprehend is to grasp the meaning of. We can listen, we can understand, but to fully grasp the meaning of something, to make it your own--that is revelation.

Try This

Take a familiar verse and write it on a note card. Tack it on your bathroom mirror or anywhere you will come across it many times a day. Each time you come across it read it out loud to yourself. Look that verse up in other translations at Biblegateway.com. I especially like the Amplified version if I want deeper understanding. Check out Blueletterbible.org and see what the individual words in their original language mean.

Watch and see if you don't get a revelation of greater meaning from this familiar verse. There are too many times that we take certain verses for granted. We've known them so long, we can recite them, but we don't stop to think about what they really mean.

It could be that you will be in church or listening to teaching and a light bulb goes off in your brain and you "get" that verse that you have studied. It is yours, you have taken hold of it, you "get" it on a much deeper level than you previously had.

Less is More

It is my experience that this works best with one or two verses, not five or ten or twenty. It is when you choose just the one or two that you can focus better. When you have lots and lots of verses (and I'm sure they are all good ones), you can't really focus on any of them enough to get a revelation about any of them.

God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him

It is also my experience that revelation does not come by sitting in church. I sat in church for about 26 years, but did not read my Bible on my own. I did no study whatsoever. I also did not get any revelation. I had a few "Aha!" moments in church receiving "hand-me-down" revelation, but none of my own. I didn't know the difference until I started studying the Bible for myself and starting getting my own revelations. The difference is huge!

Now it could be that you have studied a topic and meditated on a verse and then while sitting in church the lightbulb goes off, but if you are not putting in the effort to diligently seek God and study His Word, He won't reward you with revelation and wisdom.

Prayer

If you are diligently seeking God, you can pray and ask Him to reveal His wisdom to you and He will. Pray the above passage from Ephesians for yourself. Pray and ask God to help you comprehend what is the width, length, depth, and height—that you would know the love of Christ that passes knowledge and that you would be filled with all the fullness of God.