Discerning Christ In Your Brother or Sister, the Gifts, Ministries, Offices, and Ordinances of the Body of Christ

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.

Discerning the Body of Christ is righteousness. "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. (Eph 2:19-22)

We are stones in the temple (Church) of which God is speaking here. (1Pet 2:5) This Church is Christ the Body. If you are in the Body of Christ, you are in Christ. There is that which is Christ (the Body) and that which is not Christ (the Body). That which is not the Church is the world. The two are in conflict and cannot be reconciled. We have things in our lives that are Christ and things that have to go that are not Christ. (Eph 4:23)

When you get angry with a fellow believer, do you see their flesh or their ministry (the Christ in them)?

Suppose it is your spouse or your offspring. Suppose it is a member of your local assembly. Suppose it is another Christian you have dealings with.

When you get angry, it is because you see their flesh rather than who they are in Christ. You were deceived because you saw them as being the flesh. (2Cor 5:16)

They have the flesh, but they are not the flesh. They are the ministry—Christ in them. That is reality.

Because of this lie, you slipped into anger. If you believed the lie and would not listen to the Spirit, you continued to step across the line, perhaps speaking to yourself other lies about this person.

If you believe this lie, you plant wicked seed in the garden of your heart. If you receive the sinful seeds of others, you will plant them into your heart. If you plant wicked seed in your heart, this seed will spring forth and trouble you.

If, on the other hand, you hear this lie as you slip. Your heart told the lie. It originated with Satan, and it was a root of bitternes from seeds planted in the past. You were tempted when your own lusts troubled you. But you did not take the next step as your evil fleshly nature told you, even though it was quite deceptive in tempting you. Rather, you turned to Jesus. Jesus gave you a word. Perhaps it was comfort. Maybe encouragement. It might have been a word of edification. You received the word from God. It worked faith in your heart, God's faith. God's faith opened the door to God's grace. You allowed God's grace to flow into your heart. Perhaps you felt the warmth of God's anointing flooding though your whole being. A calm came over you. God spoke His word to your brother or your sister as you yielded your mouth and your tongue to His Holy Spirit. What might have been a terrible fight became a wonderful bonding of the Body of Christ. The Spirit flowed from you to the other member and you sensed the flow in return.

Discerning Christ In Your Brother or Sister, the Gifts, Ministries, Offices, and Ordinances of the Body of Christ

How can we know anything about anything

The Church, What Is It and What Is Its Purpose

God's Way

Contact Form