Questions and Answers: What makes you think that only your view of Jesus is accurate?

Obey your flesh and descend into darkness

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.

You may hear something like this:

Answer:

This is actually an excellent question. The reason that followers of Christ can know for certain that their view of Jesus is accurate is because of revelation. However, there is more to this story.

It should be noted that, for every thought, we could ask ourselves, "Why do I believe that?" We would answer that question with a statement, another truth claim. Let's say that a Hindu makes a truth claim that says "Hinduism is a religion that believes in peace." Let's call that truth claim A. Why is truth claim A thought to be true? The Hindu would then say, "Because..." some truth claim, truth claim B. Why, then, is truth claim B true? Because of truth claim C. And why is truth claim C true? Eventually, one of the following things will happen.

The reality is that even those people who follows Jesus have clouded and inaccurate views of Christ. To walk in the Spirit is to walk in a way that leads the follower of Christ to come closer to Christ and to have a vision that is more clear.

Every person is created with a spirit, as mind, and a body. The three are joined in a way that we really only partially understand. Before we knew Christ, we were dead. Death is a separation. We were separated from God because of sin. God could not come near to us because of our sin, and we were in such rebellion against God that we would not come near to God. Jesus died for our sins and paid the price required to redeem us back to God. That means that, by believing God, we are changed in a moment. The change takes place in the human spirit. The human spirit is joined to the Holy Spirit of God and largely set free from Satan's slavery.

That is when the war begins. The natural mind of man is amazingly evil and crafty. It hates God is a slave of Satan. The follower of Christ now has a spirit joined the Holy Spirit and a mind that is being changed, that is, renewed. The word, repent, actually means have a new mind. So the mind is clouded, but God is beginning to reveal Himself to the follower of Christ. As the follower of Christ believes God, instead of being conformed to the spirits of the present age, the follower of Christ's mind is actually transformed by the Holy Spirit. That means that our knowledge and revelation is incomplete and that we must be ready to allow Christ to redirect us. We know Jesus, though, and we trust that He is able to lead us. We know that if we seek Him faithfully with all our hearts, souls, and minds, that we will find Him. We also know that God has placed, in the Church, those gifts, ministries, and offices that are for the purpose of receiving this revelation in safety. There is no safety in the creative little methods developed by those who call themselves "Christian." God is restoring His order and pattern for the Church in the remnant who are willing to receive it.

So the answer is not as straight-forward as one would think. The revelation that any follower of Christ has is known to be accurate because it is revelation and not based on the seeing of the eye or the process of the mind. On the other hand, the follower of Christ is aware that his or her own mind is the enemy of God and needs to be made new by the progressive righteousness of the Holy Spirit and the progressive removal of the veil. All of this prepared the follower of Christ to fit into his or her place of service in the Body of Christ.

Human reasoning is flawed and the human mind is deceitful and desperately wicked. In fact, without Christ, the whole human being is a slave of Satan: spirit, mind, and body. However, whoever comes to Jesus will find Him. Then, the process of being set free is set in motion. Jesus will reveal Himself to you just as He has to everyone who has ever continually and sincerely searched for Him. The Holy Spirit is now calling to you and telling you that there is something more for you in Christ, something that you have never experienced before.

The church has become anything but the Body of Christ, having much sin and many divisions. However, God is working with a remnant and restoring the Scriptural order of the Kingdom of God. The true Body of Christ is the method by which the followers of Christ will be brought into the completeness, that is, fullness. When the Body of Christ comes into its fullness, it will be the Kingdom of God.

Questions and Answers: What makes you think that only your view of Jesus is accurate?

How can we know anything about anything

Answer:

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