Enlightened

- Paul prayed that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened. In the Bible, the heart is the very core of life, the center of understanding, thought, wisdom, will, and moral judgment. One can have a head knowledge of the Bible yet his/her heart remains dark and dead. There is such thing as empty intellectual knowledge of Scripture. We need the Holy Spirit to shine the light on the truth of Scripture in the eyes of our hearts. Only then we can actually understand what God wants us to understand. It's like a light bulb being turned on inside of us so that we're able to truly see/know the benefits of the Gospel and grasp & appreciate the fullness of our God-given spiritual treasures/blessings. The Holy Spirit enables us to understand the magnitude of the blessings of salvation that exist for God's children ("the saints").

- When the eyes of our hearts are enlightened, we know/understand the unshakable blessed hope of eternal glory that Christ will return and that we will spend eternity with Him in Heaven, the riches of His glorious inheritance that is now ours (we're His heirs in Christ and co-heirs with Christ), and the incomparably great power of God (verse 19) which is available to us. Hope in the Bible is the complete certainty/the absolute assurance in what God is going to do according to His promises in His Word. God's inheritance/blessed privileges for us are riches that money cannot buy. Some of these riches are His grace, mercy, goodness, wisdom, forgiveness, etc. "His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and goodness." (2 Peter 1:3) The same power that raised Christ from the dead is presently at work in our lives. Are we living like heirs of the Almighty God or like paupers? It's a tragedy when believers fail to live according to the hope, riches, and power they possess in Christ.