God's Way

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

No one can come to God except through Jesus Christ (John 3:14), and no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws them (John 6:44-47). The Father draws us, so we seek God. Everyone who seeks God does find Him (Luke 11:9). God speaks (Romans 10:17), and so does the enemy of our souls (John 8:44). God speaks His hope into our heart. God's hope sure. It is the thing that He intends to do. We choose to listen to God's voice and ignore the enemy (Hebrews 3:15). We listen if we have ears to hear (Matthew 13:9-13). Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17). Faith gives us access to God's grace, God's Holy Spirit, His mercy and power (Romans 5:2). Jesus stands at the door and knocks, and we open the door to Him by faith. Grace, the free gift of God, flows in with wisdom, righteousness, holiness, redemption, love, joy, peace, and all that is needed to overcome the enemy of our souls. We choose to yield to the grace of God rather than trying to do our own human works (Romans 6:13). As sin reigned bringing death, in the same way grace can now reign in our hearts through the righteousness that is a free gift from God. God gives us righteousness because we ask Him for it and believe that He will give it. As we allow God to control us in this way and do His work through us, we are changed by degrees in ever more glorious likeness of Him (2 Corinthians 3:18). We increasingly take on His likeness and image. This leads to eternal life. (Romans 5:21)

God is calling to you. He is saying, "Let it flow." Let the anointing of the Holy Spirit flow. If you have ever been in a Spirit-led church service, you know what He means. The flow of God's Spirit is the most wonderful experience that you can ever have. It cleanses you from the inside out. God wants to go with you everywhere. The Holy Spirit is like a mighty river. Out of your innermost being, rivers of water flow. This is not a trickle or a sprinkling. Jesus wants to go with you everywhere... to work... to the store... to church... to everything you do.

As God's Spirit flows, He cleanses. He makes us clean, line on line and precept on precept, here a little and there a little. The Anointing Oil of the Holy Spirit is God's sweet judgment that cleanses us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:6-10). It cleanses us from all the things that Jesus did not author (Hebrews 12:2). It cleanses us from all that is not of faith (Romans 14:23).

God does His work through us. In this process, something of our carnal mind is transformed and cleansed. From glory to glory, God is now doing a work of transfiguring us and creating a clean heart in us. We can't store up the Holy Spirit (Jeremiah 2:12-14), but righteousness and holiness consist of a constant, perpetual flowing of the Anointing, the Holy Spirit, of God, which flows out of our innermost being as a fountain of living water (John 7:38-39). I don't understand all about how this works, and I have assurance in my spirit that understanding all of this is not necessary. The flow of the anointing is what is needed. Taking ground is one thing, but holding ground requires a mighty flow of God's power, because the enemy is always trying to win back ground through his deceitful and clever lies (Matthew 12:43-45). While we are faltering creatures, sometimes in the anointing and sometimes out of the anointing, God's will is that we always stay in the anointing and receive His blessing, whether at work, at play, in the home, in the church, or wherever we are. He works with us toward that goal.

In light of the fact that it is God who leads and it is God who works, we all need to realize that there is no way that a human being can self-generate victory. We can take ground and hold ground, but not by self-effort. This is a spiritual battle, and the victory is really a spiritual victory. There is no way that a human being can self-generate wisdom (Romans 1:28). Wisdom is a gift (James 1:5-8). Doing things right is also a gift (Romans 5:17). Doing things right is righteousness, although some theologies have tried to deceive us, but the one who does righteousness does right things (1 John 3:7).

The battleground of the current conflict is in the soul, which the Bible sometimes calls the mind or heart. Online Bible's Greek-English lexicon says that the word, quch psuche, is translated as soul, life, mind, and heart. The human is a three-part being, spirit, soul, and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). In our spirits, we have great unity with the Holy Spirit, but the battle is for the soul, the mind, the heart, the life. We are tempted when we are drawn away by our own desires from our own minds (James 1:13-15), which are driven by principalities and powers and by the world (Ephesians 6:12). Our minds were created to be in submission to the mind of God. We were made to be in the anointing. Our minds are to be renewed, and they are renewed in the flow of the anointing.

God's Way

How can we know anything about anything

Growing in Christ

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