In Our Hearts

But perhaps you might argue - well, I've never seen Jesus. He's ascended to heaven. This is all too theoretical.

How can I really know God?

God has an answer. In John 14, Jesus teaches his disciples, "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you."

Or consider Matthew 28. Jesus promises his disciples, "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Or think of Romans 5: "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

We have God's love poured into our hearts. For how long? As long as the Holy Spirit is in our hearts. When will the Spirit leave us? God has pledged to never leave or forsake us.

Further, God can never leave us because we are united with Christ. Michael Reeves emphatically speaks to this reality, "The greatest benefit of union with Christ is Christ. This marriage is made so that we may know and enjoy him. Union with him is the foundation, the beginning: communion with him is the goal."

Reeves further explicates this idea regarding the metaphor Jesus provides to us, "'I am the vine; you are the branches.' It boggles the mind just how much work that simple image does. There it is: our union and our communion with Christ. He is the vine; we are the branches (Jn 15:1-8). One. In vital, closest union. No distance. The vine holds nothing back from its branches, pouring all its life into them."

Finally, the testimony of a Christian is that we know God.

George Whitfield once exclaimed, "God soon showed me… true religion was a union of the soul with God, and Christ formed within us… and from that moment… I knew that I must be a new creature."

The theologian Fred Sanders shares a quote from Nicky Cruz's testimony - a man who was a gang leader and is now a Christian evangelist:

"I have come to see God, to know Him, to relate to Him as Three-in-One, God as Trinity, God as Father, Saviour, and Holy Spirit. God has given to me over the years a vision of Himself as Three-in-One, and the ability to relate to God in that way is the single most important fact of my Christian growth."

Isn't your testimony that you know God? There is an inner experience - sometimes dim, sometimes painfully absent, but sometimes overwhelming - that you are God's beloved.

Wherever we look to see the activity of God, we see our Triune God acting to make himself known to us.