Asking the best question…

Today’s devotional offers a statement that I’ve never thought about before. It says:

Nowhere in the Bible are we given the slightest intimation that God’s children were to be anything but perfectly sure of their relationship to Him as children and of His relationship to them as Father. The flood of doubt and questioning that so often overwhelms Christian hearts in these days was apparently never so much as conceived of in Bible times nor by Bible Christians, and consequently it was nowhere definitely provided against. The foundation on which all commands and exhortations were based was that those to whom the commands and exhortations were addressed knew without question that they were God’s children and that He was their Father.

This statement does not consider any of those “if you believe” suggestions because those who believe know that they believe. Consider this:

Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (1 John 5:10–11)

Those who believe know it. Oh, there are times when we get our eyes off Jesus and look at our performance — seeing it as totally puny and wondering if we have any right or reason to call ourselves Christians, but that is contrary to what God keeps telling us. Our faith is not in ourselves. Only sometimes we just want it to be!

The passage above is followed by this statement:

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:12–13)

This is so simple. If Jesus is in my life, He makes Himself known. How can He not? He is so obvious, so different from all other, so incredible, that nothing can erase the sense of Him. Sin mars our vision, but does not remove Jesus. This is backed up in other places.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:9–11)

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Do you know Jesus? should be the question, not “Are you a Christian?” For those who know Jesus are Christians. It is as simple as that.
It is also helpful to remember that those who respond with an answer that the Bible is not true, Jesus does not exist, and so on, are saying that God is a liar. This puts them in greater danger than merely not yet knowing or having a personal relationship with the Christ.

PRAY: Jesus, the next time I wonder about the salvation of a person and have opportunity to speak to that person about their spiritual state, remind me that this is the question to ask; Do you know Jesus? If they do, they will know it, just as if I asked them if they their spouse or if they know their children. If they do not, it will be as if I asked them if they know someone who lives on the other side of the world with a strange name and of a different nationality. The next question could easily be: May I introduce you?