The dividing line

Yesterday’s news quoted a television personality as saying that a prominent politician’s Christian beliefs are a mental illness. I noted the difference in her countenance and the face of the one she accused. If appearances are any indication, it is not the politician who has the problem.

This story reminded me of the demon-possessed man that ran naked through the tombs and terrified those around him. Today, most people would say he was mentally ill. When Jesus met the man, He told many demons to leave him. 

Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. (Luke 8:35)

Encountering Jesus does not bring mental illness or demonic disorders; He is a healer. The people knew it and “they were sized with great fear” (verse 37). His power was more terrifying than what had been happening to that man!

This incident in the life of Jesus says much about today’s sharp line between those who believe in Him and those who do not. The Word of God is totally black and white in this regard. It seems obvious that anyone who realizes that line would be afraid, and if not, they should be. This is what Jesus says about that sharp line between believers and those who deny the Gospel:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:36)

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. (Matthew 12:30)

Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:32; 46)

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Those who followed Him were also black and white. They said things like:

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

And we who believe in Jesus are still saying it. Why are we so sure? The objective reason is the certainty that Jesus died and rose from the dead. The resurrection used to be dismissed with many arguments, but no longer. There is too much evidence to support it. It changed our calendar and unites all who believe it into one family of God.

The subjective reason is what happens in our lives when we believe. Just as Jesus said, we are changed. We are not perfect (yet) but we hate the sin we once loved, love the Christians we once disregarded, and know the power of the Holy Spirit. He fills us with His attitudes which are much different than what was once normal.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22–23)

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Jesus, I’m not as black and while in my opinions about many things as I used to be, but still see no gray areas when it comes to Your identity and the reality of what You say and what You came to do for sinners. Statements like that of the television personality once made me angry, but because of Your compassion toward sinners of which I am one, I feel great sorrow for her. She does not realize what side of a great gulf her attitude has placed her.

Established in history, not in myth

Occasionally someone comes along with the idea that the Bible is only a religious document without historical veracity. They say that the Old Testament is largely myth and the New Testament is about the “idea” of Christ, not about a real person or real events.

For me, this is interesting, but totally without value. If Christ is not real, and if He did not die for my sin, I’ve no assurance of forgiveness. If Christ did not actually rise from the dead, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, my faith is useless and my experience meaningless.

Instead, I’m firmly convinced of the reality of Jesus. I believe His Word, and have also experienced what He said would happen. He said that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin. This happened to me. He also said that if we confess our sin and receive Him as Lord and Savior, we will experience a relationship with God, removal of guilt, victory over sin, and the assurance of eternal life. All that happened to me. Those who talk about the Bible as myth do not share stories of a real relationship with a real God. How could they if He is just an idea?

Today, I am reading about another promise related to my Christian experience. This one concerns the Holy Spirit. When Jesus talked to the disciples, He said that out of the heart of believers would flow living water and then John explains . . . 

Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:39)

At that time, the disciples did not know the Holy Spirit’s presence or power. Only after Jesus ascended to heaven would the Holy Spirit come. He told them later to be on the lookout . . . 

And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:49)

This power was the power of the Spirit, unknown to them prior but as soon as Jesus was glorified, the Holy Spirit came into the world and is available to all who believe. This would be a real experience, not a mere notion. In fact, the Word of God is clear that the Spirit lives in everyone who knows Jesus as their Lord and Savior. 

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)

This incredible reality was also part of Jesus’ prayer before the crucifixion. He prayed, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

Jesus made it clear that eternal life is about knowing God. Christianity is about a personal relationship made possible by the power of God and the Spirit of God who lives in all who believe.

In the very beginning, after Jesus died and rose and went to heaven, the disciples had to wait until the day of Pentecost until the Lord was glorified — an historical event. Then, as soon as that happened, the Spirit was given in that room where the believers gathered. Their experience was an historical event also.

As the Bible says, this experience marked the arrival of the Holy Spirit. It is not repeated in the lives of believers now because the Spirit is already in this world. As said, He came as soon as Jesus was glorified in His ascension and has been here ever since.

Daily, I need to remember and embrace the Spirit as a fact of my new life in Christ. I need to always maintain an attitude of relying on Him who is my life link to the living God. I can be filled with the Spirit or filled with myself at any given moment, but it is the filling of the Spirit that gives me the ability to live as I ought. It is also evidence of the ascended Christ. This Christ, who came into my life, changes me by the power of His Spirit. I need no other “events” because I already have all that I need to live a godly life of obedience.

A personal relationship with God through the Holy Spirit also describes eternal life and explains to me why my mind is seldom on the past or even thinking about the future. The presence of the Holy Spirit pushes aside human thoughts of time and turns life into a glorious NOW. Just as Jesus said, “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee.”

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Lord, knowing You is life eternal. Wow. I am continually amazed by what You have done and are doing in my life and the lives of Your people. All of these things are real, historical events. We do not exist in a nebulous and mythical idea of ‘the Christ’ but in the reality of changed lives because we have a personal relationship with a very real God. Thank You, thank You, thank You.

How do I know He is real?

Does anyone doubt the existence of historical figures like George Washington, Plato, or King Tut? Evidence abounds concerning them and much has been written about them. Yet when it comes to Jesus Christ, I’ve heard people say that He was not a real person, and that the Bible is fiction.

Today’s devotional reading gives four other records concerning Jesus. For instance, a Roman historian named Tacitus wrote that the founder of the Christian religion, Jesus Christ, was put to death by Pontius Pilate in the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius (Annals 15.44, dated about A.D. 114). A letter from Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan is about Christ and Christians (Letters 10.96-97).

The more well-known Jewish historian, Josephus, wrote a short biographical note on Jesus in A.D. 90. He said, “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call Him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ” (Antiquities 18.63). The Jewish Talmud also refers to Jesus of Nazareth.

Further, when evidence is given in a court case, eyewitnesses are important even if their testimonies differ on the details, yet the eyewitness evidence in Scripture for Jesus, given with incredible unity from many who saw Him, is tossed out as not credible. I find this very interesting.

How do I know that Jesus is real? In one way, something like I know that other historical figures were real; I believe the eyewitnesses and their written accounts. Yet in the case of Jesus, there is something that is subjective, something that happens to people who not only believe He existed but put their faith in Him for salvation from sin and eternal life. We have the testimony, as it were, that He does for us what He said He would do, even two thousand years after His appearance on earth; Jesus Christ changes our lives.

For me, this was instant and is still happening. I’ve written before about my attitude toward others in my pre-Christian life. I didn’t know much about God and really didn’t like people. Then one fall day, Jesus Christ came into my life. I can still remember sitting on my front step in the sunshine and realizing that my attitude toward people had suddenly changed. It was a marvel to me, no effort on my part, but there it was. Of course that change is ongoing and being polished by the Holy Spirit, yet it was God doing the impossible and proving to me that Jesus is real. 1 John 4:8-9 says:

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

Since then, and often with some reluctance on my part, God works to reveal my need to change, not only my attitudes, but also the way I talk and act. Before Christ, I would try for self-improvement with selfish reasons. Now the old nature, my sin nature, resists change, but the new nature God has given me, that life of Christ, is a real and actual force that cannot be denied. My destiny is change and growth; He is transforming me into the image of this real Person who was sent by God into the world so that all this could happen to me. He came that I might live.

Change is a continual process. I’m nearly 67 years old, and after more than 35 years of knowing Jesus, one might think there is a limit to the need for it, but not so. He keeps showing me where I am sinful, selfish, and not like Him. He also keeps pouring out His love and grace that I might be changed.

The historical records are interesting. The Scriptures are essential (the Word of God is very powerful to change lives; it is the Bread of life), yet it is those changes that put the butter on my bread. God daily verifies to me that without any doubt, Jesus Christ is a real person.