How do works that are by faith relate to seeing Christ in each other and being transfigured by the Holy Spirit?

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.

Your spiritual senses are exercised by reason of use. You discern Christ. When you see Him, you are transfigured to be like Him.

Another way to look at this is that Truth sets us free. We each have the systems, disorders, and lies of this age in our hearts. The lies of this age blind us—we can’t see. The lies in our mind keep us in bondage. These lies act as a filter so we cannot discern reality. Our actions are based our perceptions of reality. Without a vision, the people perish. Truth sets us free.
We can, theoretically, say that Christ came in the flesh, yet deny it in our actions.

Only actions that proceed from Christ are righteous. Actions that do not proceed from Christ are always unrighteous because of their source. We were created to flow with the love that comes through Christ. Without that love, the best we can be is hypocritical.

If we do not discern Christ, our actions, though seemingly good, are unrighteous since they proceed from us and not Christ. What we see makes a difference. This is the same as saying that if we glory in ourselves, then it is we who are doing the work rather than Christ. If, for instance, we come to Church and try to minister in our own power, it is not Christ who ministers, it is ourselves who minister.

When we see Christ, in our brother and our sister, we receive that ministry that proceeds from the Christ in them. This is the ministry that has power to build us up.
When we do any work that is by faith, we are actually discerning the Body of Christ, since it is a work that is of faith. That is, God speaks, we acknowledge and receive God’s faith which gives access to God’s grace (free gift of righteousness) which does the work in us and plants the seeds of holiness and redemption (freedom from sin) in our hearts, changing us in our very nature from glory to glory. If it is not by faith, then it is a work of us, which only can yield death. It can look good, but only that which comes from God is good and only that which comes from God transfigures us.

When we speak of being in Christ Jesus, we are really speaking of being in Christ the Body. When we speak of Christ Jesus in us, we are really speaking of having Christ, the Head, living in us and leading us and doing His work through us.

When God speaks, He doesn't always use words: "And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" Numbers 12:6-8 Now, in our day, we find that God leads through the Bible, through the conscience, through members of the Body of Christ, and through many other means. "... no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." 1 Corinthians 12:3

The biggest lie is the lie that has a complete representation in our minds involving all of our senses. These lies are so real that we think they are reality itself; however, they are not reality. They are lies. These lies control our actions. They speak to us in contradiction to what God shows us. In each moment, when we listen to God, when we see the heavenly vision that He gives, we receive His faith, which gives access to His grace, which does His works, which leads to His holiness and redemption, which is our transfiguration. That one sentence describes exactly how each member of the Body of Christ was designed to function in the Body.

There are only two entities. There is Christ, and there is that which is not Christ. There is the church and there is that which is not the church. That which is not the church is sometimes called the world. It is that which is of the present evil age, it’s orders and ideas. The word, church, means "called out." The church is simply that which has been called out of the world.
When we see anything, we discern the Body of Christ, the church. We can see that which is of Him and that which is not of Him. We can only discern this as He reveals it to us. For God to reveal a thing to us is for Him to communicate with us. So He shows us reality, what is the church and what is not the church. Our flesh tries to convince us of a lying vision. When acknowledge God rather than our own flesh, faith comes opening the door to grace which does the works in us and leads us into holiness and redemption from glory to glory.

Only God can reveal the Truth, since we cannot discern between the lies and the Truth on our own. The Church is mechanism that God primarily uses to reveal the Truth. God can and does come to us directly to reveal His will, but, as a member of the Church, He is simply preparing us for taking our places in Christ the Body in the in-Christ experience. We take our places and begin to supply the needs of every other member. God’s goal is to build the entire Body according to the pattern with every gift, ministry, operation, office, and order in its place and fully functioning. Whenever the Body of Christ comes into this place of completeness and order and unity, they will call that the manifestation of the sons of God.

How do works that are by faith relate to seeing Christ in each other and being transfigured by the Holy Spirit?

How can we know anything about anything

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