LIFT Daily Prayer: Open Our Understanding | November 12, 2025

For believers seeking deeper spiritual understanding and guidance, the key to unlocking the power of the Bible is divine intervention, as highlighted in Luke 24:45. This scripture serves as the foundation for learning how to pray the Bible, emphasizing that true comprehension is not a product of human effort but the direct work of God.

The Biblical Basis for Divine Comprehension

The mandate for achieving biblical literacy is found in the New Testament account of the Resurrection afternoon. Jesus, meeting the two disciples on their way back home to Emmaus, “opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures”.

This act of divine enlightenment is crucial because it demonstrates that the ability to truly grasp the Word of God stems entirely from Jesus Christ. Believers are called to pray specifically that the Lord would unlock the Scriptures to their understanding.

The Contrast: Confusion vs. Comfort

The experience of reading the Bible differs dramatically between those who are alienated from God and those who have turned to Christ.

The Unbeliever’s Experience

Before becoming a Christian, a person picking up the Bible often finds the text confusing, seeming “crazy,” and failing to hold their attention. The individual, in this lost state, is often the “author of our own confusion” because they are alienated from God. Furthermore, the Bible states that Satan is the author of confusion, not God.

The Believer’s Experience

Once an individual turns to God and seeks Him, the reading experience fundamentally changes:

• The Bible “explodes with comfort”.
• It “explodes with logic and reason“.
• It “explodes with understanding” and “answers”.

This profound shift—where confusion gives way to powerful clarity—is a phenomenon unique to the believer in the Bible. Unlike followers of other sacred texts (Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims), who only hear their spiritual leaders speaking to them, the Christian experiences the Word itself speaking with immediate understanding. Hypothetically, if ten church attendees read the Bible, only those who belong to Jesus will likely come to the same conclusion about the text’s meaning.

The Power of Prayer and Seeking God

Since comprehension is the work of God, the path to greater understanding requires prayer and a deliberate surrender of self-reliance.

Conditions for Understanding

Jesus promises to open up the Scriptures primarily to those who are not leaning upon their own understanding. This means turning away from personal, human logic and instead praying, “Lord speak lead and guide from the word”.

The daily prayer of the believer should be centered on asking the Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name, to unlock the scriptures for the day. This spiritual opening applies not just to theological study but also to practical life issues: seeking guidance in marriage, over children, and over the family. Young people are also encouraged to pray that God would “unlock my mom and dad’s understanding of the scriptures”.