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How We Know


         Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.    (I John 3:18-24) 

          I was going to go in a different direction this morning, until the sentence “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us.” I don’t know about you, but my heart spends a lot of time condemning me. I spend a great deal of time upset by what Dad’s going through or doing, and another big chunk beating myself because m response to Dad isn’t the sweetness and light that all my Job’s friends everyone tells me it’s supposed to be. They mean well. They even love me, I’m sure, and they’re trying to be helpful, but they don’t give me the capacity to do other than fail. I can’t live up to their beautiful, lofty, exalted, and good standards. 
         But John tells me that God is greater than my heart. We have to be careful here, because it is way too easy to tell ourselves that it’s only our hearts, God knows better, I’m not so bad. He does know our hearts, and He recognizes both ends of the spectrum: a heart that condemns too easily and a heart that doesn’t condemn what should be condemned. 
         All that brings me back to familiar ground. God will guide me in the way I should go. He won’t let me miss my exits and detours. God will provide all my needs, including someone to point out my errors, or someone to encourage, or someone to talk sense when I’m off the res mentally or emotionally. WDA, WDA. On this, once again, I can build. This is how I know He lives in me – because He has guided. Sometimes, it’s that one little piece of the puzzle that we know about that is all we need. I may screw everything in the world up (again and again) but I hold on to His promise to guide. That I what lets me know He lives in me.

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