We Can Be Sure

ByJim Stephens

Scripture: 1 John 2 TPT (Click link for scripture in You Version)

3 Here’s how we can be sure that we’ve truly come to know God: if we keep his commands. 4 If someone claims, “I have come to know God by experience,” yet doesn’t keep God’s commands, he is a phony and the truth finds no place in him. 5 But the love of God will be perfected within the one who obeys God’s Word. We can be sure that we’ve truly come to live in intimacy with God, 6 not just by saying, “I am intimate with God,” but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus. (1 John 2:3-6 TPT)

How can I be sure? How can I be sure I can trust God? How can I be sure God loves me? So many of the “how can I be sure” questions have to do with being sure of or trusting in God. This “how can I be sure” question is different. It’s about being sure I really know God.

Knowing about God is not the same as knowing God. Our encounters with the Pharisees and teachers of religious law as we journeyed together through Matthew’s and John’s Gospels this year taught me an unforgettable lesson. It was repeated over and over until I didn’t want to hear it, be reminded of it, or think about it anymore.

The lesson is this: The people who are professional “God Knowers”, who have studied all the Chapters and Verses, who believe they have all the answers and all the truth, who believe that anyone who doesn’t believe exactly the way they do about God, may not know God at all! They may claim to know all about God, but don’t recognize him when they see him! They may claim to know the way to God, the truth about God, and how to live a godly life, but when the Way, the Truth, and the Life stands before him, they kill him! If it sounds like this time in the Gospels marked me, it’s true!

John says:

  • If someone claims, “I have come to know God by experience,” yet doesn’t keep God’s commands, he is a phony and the truth finds no place in him. God’s commands: 1) Love God supremely, 2) Love others as you love yourself.
  • If someone says “I am intimate with God,” but isn’t walking in the footsteps of Jesus, it’s dead religion. Footsteps of Jesus: 1) Lovingly leading, 2) Sacrificially serving, 3) Continually forgiving.

Prayer:

Father, I want to be sure I know you! Please help me to love you and others, to lovingly influence, to sacrificially serve, and to continually forgive. In Jesus’ Name.