How do you know?

One of those heavy philosophical questions is: how do we know what we know? Skeptics and pessimists might say all of life is an illusion, or that what we know is a projection of what we desire. I don’t know the depths of all this. I do know that I can be deceived into thinking something is true when it later proves otherwise. I also realize that there is a difference between hoping things will turn out based on what I want and having knowledge based on God’s Word. The first can ‘go south’ but the second never changes.

Romans 8 is the chapter about knowing. It begins with the qualification for my certainty — which is not based on my brain power at all, but on my relationship with Jesus Christ and on what He says is true. It is not true because I believe it; I believe it because it is true.

From this chapter, I know that I’m not under God’s condemnation. God says this is true for anyone who is ‘in Christ Jesus’ — those who trust Him to set us free from the law of sin and death. God has done what the law could not do.

“By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 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 8:3-11)

In this chapter, God also says that all who believe have the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit who knows and because of His testimony to my heart, I also know who I am and I know what is mine in Christ!

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:12-17)

As Fortner says, Romans 8 assures me that there is a better day coming. Daily news verifies that the earth is cursed by sin, a place of suffering. Yet verses 18 – 25 say that our present sufferings “are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”

Someday creation will be “set free from its bondage to corruption” and enter into the “freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Our bodies will be redeemed, yet in the meantime we both “groan inwardly” and yet “wait eagerly” and “with patience” as the Holy Spirit helps us in our praying and our knowing.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30)

This promise was impressed on my heart when God saved me. Because of Him, I knew and still know and rely on this truth. All that happens to me is used by God to shape me into the image of His Son. Knowing this has made sense of life and for me, is a very important truth.

There is more. Verses 31-39 asks rhetorical questions and all those who belong to God know the answers.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  . . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure (I know) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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Jesus, those without faith charge believers with presumption and arrogance, for this is the only knowing that they understand concerning You and eternal matters. Yet I know that blindness too. Once I was there, not knowing or being able to wrap my mind around who You are and what You have done. it is only because You opened my eyes to see Your reality that I can now know the truth and that truth has set me free!

The vanity of life has a solution

Solomon, a very wise man, wrote Ecclesiastes, a lament on the vanity of life. He was rich, with great power, unlimited wealth, a huge mansion and many loves. He had done it all, but when reflecting on his life, he said that none of it gave the satisfaction that he wanted. His attempt to explain this mysterious, bewildering, uneasy,  hoping, fearing, dreaming, dreading, waiting thing we call life came up empty, at least empty apart from God.

Paul observed the people of Athens groping for the same answers. They had built an altar to the “unknown God” but still could not explain the mysteries of their lives. Paul said that God did this…

…that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us… (Acts 17:27)

Phillips Brooks writes that Paul’s words to these people are words also to all people. We are restless, always at the edge of something that we cannot quite reach, always on the point of grasping something that eludes us and haunted by something that makes it impossible to settle down into absolute rest.

He says that the answer to our unease is the presence of God. He is Immanuel, God with us. His very presence will not let the human heart find peace in anything less than Himself. Some say we have a God-shaped hole inside us, one that cannot be filled with anything else. Before that empty space is filled, His presence, although not far from us, will not let us be at peace. That sense of always wanting an elusive something cannot be satisfied until we respond to the invitation of the Savior.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. (John 7:37)

All across the centuries, Jesus offers that rest, and offers it still today. Those who stop their pursuit for something to fill that hole in their hearts long enough to think seriously about it might ask, “If He is close to me, separated only by the thin curtain of my blindness, wouldn’t that explain the ache in my life?”

This is that everlasting question, the one Solomon asked and the one that haunts every human being. What else can explain this mystery, the why of life? God gave life to all and remains close to all, yet is unable to give the answers to all because we block those answers.

Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” (Jeremiah 6:16)

“Not far from each one of us” is the secret of this vague unease of life. Human beings are sinful and weak, all of us. The problem is refusing to acknowledge God and live with Him. His nearness will not let us be at peace in our sin and weakness, but peace, forgiveness, cleansing, and even power can belong to all who open their heart and let Him in. 

God’s One-Two Punch

On my list of people for whom I pray, there are a few who worship God but are not believers in Jesus Christ. They pray, go to a place of worship, but have never shown the spiritual fruit of genuine faith.

I’ve made an assumption that these dear folks are most difficult to reach because they seem to assume that they are on a right footing with God. This day, God shows me that I should not make any assumptions. Their spiritual condition is not about what they are doing or not doing, but that nothing is impossible with God.

And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us. (Acts 16:13–15)

When Paul wrote this, he was in Philippi. This woman, Lydia, lived in Thyatira which was nearly 300 miles away and across the Aegean Sea. Was it a coincidence that she was in Philippi on a river bank with Paul that day? God is good at arranging “coincidences.”He had her where He wanted her to be.

This was a Sabbath day, the Jewish day of worship. She was interested in God and went where prayer was made. While she was not in a “church,” yet she was in some type of relationship with others who prayed. How did this happen? I’ve no idea, but I do know that God excels at putting people in places of grace.

The Lord had a plan for Lydia, and it was about where and when, but more significantly, it concerned her heart. Salvation is not about what we do or where we are, but that our hearts are open to the God who wants to enter our lives. So, the most significant work of the Holy Spirit is that “the Lord opened her heart.”

Lydia did not open her own heart, nor did her prayers do it. Paul did not do it either. This is something only God can do. He alone has the key that unlocks the human heart — that He might gain admittance. As Spurgeon says, He is the heart’s master as well as the heart’s maker.

Lydia heard Paul speak, but she heard more than his words. She heard the word of God preached, and the Bible says this hearing is the avenue for faith.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

At that point, Lydia believed and Christ entered her heart. The evidence of saving faith and of her changed life is in the passage. First she obeyed the simple command to be baptized. Genuine faith never does this to gain salvation, nor is it forced on anyone. It was a simple act of obedience that shows her heart was listening and responding to the Lord.

The second outward evidence was love for the people of God. She showed grateful kindness to the apostles by offering them hospitality. This love to the people of God has always been a mark of a true conversion, the evidence of someone whose heart has been opened.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. (1 John 4:8–13)

The story of Lydia encourages me. As I pray for those who are devout and do religious things, yet have no evidence of saving faith, I am assured that God can deliver this one-two punch by putting them in the right place at the right time, and then opening their hearts to hear His Word. Nothing is impossible for God.

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Lord, You again bless me with a simple truth. You are in charge and can draw people to Yourself. You can prepare people to hear Your Word and put their faith in You. However, I need an open heart too, so that this truth permeates my prayers for those who are religious but are very much in need of a saving relationship with You. God, grant open hearts to all of us.