This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that 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 keep 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. The one who keeps God’s commands lives 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.
1 John 3:19-24
Chapter 3 of John’s first letter ends with the assurance that we can know for sure where we stand with God, but it isn’t the answer that most of us give if we are asked “how we know”…
John’s answer is that we know by the Spirit within us.
Well steady on there, isn’t that the Spirit that so many are waiting for…until “it” decides to move…? Yes, that one, the one that we say we can’t hear.
Yes, that’s the one John is referring to!
John takes a little different tack that we often do. He says that we will notice whether or not the Spirit within us condemns us, we know that God is greater than our hearts and knows all. I think that many of us today use slightly different terminology for this by saying that we “feel convicted” about something. When this happens, we have something to seek forgiveness for and have the need to alter our behavior or attitudes in some way. When we are not condemned by our hearts, we are confident in his presence. We know that in saying these things, John is making reference to the work of the Spirit in our lives because he says so in the last part of the passage. Now, the remaining question is whether or not this is really true in our lives?
Over the years I’ve noticed that many people will tell me about their active prayer lives. They will tell me all about the countless hours they spend with God and all the rest. On other occasions, they will tell me that they never notice the Spirit working within them, and that’s how I know for sure that they don’t have any of this great prayer life they like to go on about. The reason is that seeking His presence is how we are able to discern the Spirit that is within us! Notice that John linked the two in verse 21 and 22:
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask,
You should notice something else here. Here’s verse 22 in full:
and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
Yes, we will receive anything we ask in prayer, if we “keep his commands and do what pleases him.” As always in John’s writings, asking and receiving are always firmly within the context of doing His will, and not in doing our will.
So, can you really know for sure where you stand with God?
YES!
Seek His presence and you’ll find out!
Life Project Blog 
good read….I know for sure too! God bless
Thank you!
Ah, Don, how I love your writing… its clarity… simple, lighting up often muddled spots, detangling. Wonderful. I wish I could be so straightforward and clear.
How many of us get tripped up with the point you teach here today? No one would disagree with you, yet so many live in such confusion over whether they are “in the will” and “right with God” or not. How, given the simplicity of these verses, do we ever get ourselves confused?
At the words, “keep his commands and do what pleases him.”
Here is where so many who come to me experience such anguish. When they look at the Holy Bible, the plethora of laws, rules, regulations, teachings, recommendations… all that… And when they look upon the frailties and flaws of their own walk, they lose heart. There is “none righteous, no not one”, and so on. So who of us “keep his commands and do what pleases him”? I certainly cannot say that *I* do, at each point even in a single HOUR, let alone day, week, month, year or lifetime!
My peace is in the words John uses here, along with the entire tenor of this letter. He’s not talking about keeping careful track of our “demerits” according to an exhaustive list on some divine clipboard at an inspection… he says: “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives 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.”
“God sentences”… “Truth”… like an “equation” reads equally true in all directions. This can be restated, “We know, by the Spirit he gave us, that He lives in us. Therefore, living in us, we keep God’s commandments, which simply were to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as He commanded.” No exhaustive check lists. No inspections. No breast beating or brow beating.
Three simple points, three simple truths… “Do we believe in Jesus as Son of God, Messiah? Do we love one another in Him, in and as He commands? Do we have witness of Spirit to this, the interior ring of truth to those affirmations?”
Does that sound “too easy”? “Too simple”? Well, there’s a mystery entwined with all that. The mystery is the Presence of Christ, the Holy Spirit, Himself. Three great revelations of God to man: The Father’s Love, Jesus the Son’s Forgiveness and Purification, the Holy Spirit’s Presence. Only God Himself, only the Holy Spirit, can reveal and affirm these Truths in the heart of a man. The Enemy cannot counterfeit it… man himself cannot manufacture it. Affirmation of Truth, such that we know that we know that we know… comes only from and through God Himself.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”
How amazing is that? Wow. Grace — LM
It is pretty amazing! And it’s pretty simple, too! Why must we make things complicated…? Oh well, I’m thankful that after all of the systematic theology, we can come back to the pure Word!
Thanks, LM for your kind comments!
That’s a problem I see (in myself and others) is treating God as a vending machine. We look through our options, find what WE want, pay the price, then open the flap and take our goodies. God is not a convenience. Can we ask Him for anything? Sure. Does it mean we will get it? No. Does that mean He loves us any less or that He’s not listening to us? Nope. It means He sees all and knows all, He sees and knows what we don’t or can’t. His plan for us is bigger than we are. Our motives must be pure and our desires must be pleasing to Him. Then we can have confidence that He will provide.
Thank you for this excellent post. God’s Word is manna today.
Yes it is, and thank you very much for an excellent summation!
I once dreamed, I prayed for a dying man and he lived, but then he got up and killed three people. I thought I didn’t know He was a murder. LOL From then on I decided I will always make my request but then add “everything according to your good and perfect will.”
Interesting story… and a wise amendment!
Just sitting looking at the fire carckling quietly.