Well, what do you Know?

 Read 1 John 5.

The Apostle John wrote this book to followers of Jesus to reassure them.  He addressed several issues that are prone to cause one to question their faith.  These include personal sin, false teachers, and the lack of demonstrated love for other believers.

Multiple times in each chapter the word "know" is used to remind and reinforce what the original readers had already been taught and what they already possessed in Christ.  Here, in this last chapter, no less than seven times does John undergird our faith with what we may know for certain.  One does not have to guess about their relationship with God.  There is no valid reason for one to live in doubt.  We may live with absolute confidence.

The one overriding qualification is personal faith in Jesus.  If that is true, then...
1. We know we are born of God.
"Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son does not have life." (v.12)  The mistake of Nicodemus in John 3 is the error of many today.  Physical birth does not equate to being a child of God.  One must experience a new birth by faith in Jesus in order to have eternal life.  "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." (v.13)

2. We know our prayers are heard.
God takes pleasure or delights in our sincere prayers.  "...the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him." (Proverbs 15:8)  Sin and selfishness will cause us to doubt not only the power of prayer but whether God is even listening.  But when "we love God and obey" Him (v.2), we have confidence in our relationship with Him.  "And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him." (v.15)

3. We know we do not have to keep on sinning.
"We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one." (v.19)  Those apart from Jesus live only under the influence of the devil and their own personal desires.  Those who have given themselves to Christ have the power and protection of God available to live in ways that please Him. (vv.18-19)

4. We know the truth and understand spiritual things.
Without Jesus, one's hope is only in this life, this world, and natural thinking.  But the believer has the indwelling Holy Spirit who reassures us of our faith, comforts us in our difficulties, and illuminates our understanding.  He turns the light on in our minds so that when we read the Bible, or hear God's word taught, we not only get it but we begin to see applications of the truth in daily life.

"Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God." (1 Corinthians 2:12)