In John 16, Jesus tells His disciples about the Holy Spirit who will come after His ascension. One of the primary characteristics of this Helper is that He will lead them into all truth (John 16:13).

We all have difficulties these days with knowing whether something we are seeing or hearing is actually the truth. AI has enabled deep fakes which can make anyone seem like they are saying or doing anything. So how do you know if someone is speaking the truth?

Jesus says that the reason the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth is that “He will not speak from Himself but what he hears he will speak” (ibid.). In other words there is no self interest in what He is saying.

Jesus said the same thing about His own actions earlier in the same gospel: “Truly, truly, I say to you, that the son is not able to do anything of Himself, unless it is something he sees the Father doing.” (John 5:19).

Part of my work over the years has been as an expert witness. The value of an expert witness is impartiality. This is how one contract I signed put it:

“At all times, we expect that you will provide an objective evaluation of any materials provided to you, without regard to the impact that evaluation may have upon any pending litigation or matter. We further expect that you will exercise your best independent and professional judgment with respect to all aspects of this Engagement, and that you will provide complete, accurate, and honest opinions that are not subjective or biased in any way. We want and expect you to be entirely independent.”

In a court of law an expert witness is only of value if s/he presents facts without self interest. If the judge or jury thought that the expert witness stood to gain anything by presenting the facts they would then wonder about the accuracy or bias of those facts. Perhaps the witness would leave something out or dazzle the court with science so they would believe something contrary to the truth. I have put the phone down when a barrister once asked me to do exactly that. Produce smoke and mirrors is how he put it.

So when Jesus says he is doing nothing from his own initiative and also states the Holy Spirit will say nothing from himself, then he is stating a principle about a reliable truth teller: they have nothing to gain personally from what they are saying.

Jesus makes this principle even more clear in John 7:16-18:

“My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. ¹⁷ If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him.”

So if you want to know whether something is really from God, ask yourself the question: “Do I really want to do what God wants for me?”

And the next time you hear someone stating something as fact perhaps it would be good to ask yourself what self interest might drive them to say what they are saying. Are they seeking their own glory or the glory of God?

Of all the passages in the bible which delve into this subject, Romans 1:19 – 3:20 has to be the most comprehensive. In it Paul takes heathens and religious people – in fact everyone – and comprehensively states that they are totally depraved.

There is none that is righteous, no not one. (Romans 3:10).

They have all together become useless (v. 12)

There is none who seeks God (v. 11)

There is no fear of God before their eyes (v.18).

Paul describes how it all starts: men deny the truth in unrighteousness (1:19). And how it ends: death (1:32).

In the middle of the whole sorry descent of man from the Fall onwards (Genesis 3), God gives Moses and Israel the Law whose whole purpose is to give knowledge of sin (3:20). Those who think they have the embodiment of knowledge and truth in the law and tell others not to sin are no better because they practice the things they preach against (2:17-29). Everyone is under sin (3:9). Tis all a bit depressing.

But God. Then He steps in and offers a sacrifice – propitiation – for our sins, His own self in His Son Jesus Christ through whom we are redeemed freely by His grace through faith (3:21-26).

So Paul spends a long time arguing that we need to face the truth that actually no one is righteous, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (3:23) and we are all justified freely.

Humanism doesn’t believe this. In a country at peace by the grace of God living under a kind of right government that at least doesn’t oppress people openly it is easier to believe all is right with us. Others are generally kind. Most people live at peace with their neighbours and relations in their houses.

But nations turn under the wrong types of pressures. Whole peoples can acquiesce while their leaders take them into war and many positively support evil regimes when their own personal interests are threatened. Scratch the surface and the true nature of humans is exposed.

But anyway, whether it seems obvious or not, Paul is making an argument that can be hard to stomach – unless you really know what you are capable of……

The terms Jews and Gentiles can seem a bit archaic in our times. However, there are principles related to how we think about our religion and ethnicity – whatever they might be – that Paul brings out when he uses these terms.

In Romans 2 Paul talks about those who point the finger at others and asks them to have a good look at their own actions and hearts before they do so.

Many Jews in Paul’s time thought they had the very embodiment of knowledge and truth in the law that defined their religion (Romans 2:20). Many Christians today also think the same about their religion. Paul doesn’t say they were wrong about that and I also believe that most of the Pentecostal evangelic and charismatic expressions of the Christian faith today are also correct at least in the essentials. Not that my opinion on that subject matters. It is God who judges.

But to discuss about who is right is not my purpose in this blog nor was it Paul’s purpose in Romans 2. His aim is to point out that we need to be consistent with our beliefs, walk the talk, otherwise we are no better that someone without any faith.

In fact he points out that someone who does the right thing but doesn’t share in your religion will judge you who have all the forms, knowledge of the law and ceremonies but don’t practice what they believe (Romans 2:25-27). As James says, “Faith without works is dead” (see James 2:14-26). Paul says everyone will be judged according to their works (Romans 2:6) and the Scripture overall is quite consistent on this point.

Of course, salvation by works is not what we are talking about here. Salvation by faith will be dealt with extensively in the rest of Paul’s letter to the Romans.

A consolation that I receive from Romans 2 is that God will not be unjust towards those who don’t share our beliefs or have never heard about Christ. If anyone lives a life of love and proves the universality of the knowledge of what is right by what is written on their hearts (Romans 2:15) they won’t lose their reward.

We shall see…

My wife and I have a testimony about God’s goodness to us that we want to share with you. It involves all three persons of the trinity:

1. The Father who has providentially supplied all our bodily needs and comforts.
2. The Son who indwells His body, the Church, and comforts, encourages and strengthens us through friends and loving relationships.
3. The Spirit who is a deposit in our hearts of things to come (Ephesians 1:14) and enables us to see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3).

The Father

First of all, the fact that we are born into a Western society with all its material advantages is something that we are thankful for. We had no choice about where we were born or what parents we had, or our gender or physical attributes. All these things come from a Father who has thought of us and ordained our days before any one of our days happened (Psalm 139). Such knowledge is too great for us.

There are so many factors about our lives that we have no say in. We can’t do much, if anything, about the peace we have in the countries we have lived in for years. Most of the economic aspects of our lives are also beyond our control.

We say that our Dad has done well and thank Him for our lines have fallen to us in pleasant places (Psalm 16:6).

The Son

No man is an island as the poet John Dunne said. We need other humans to survive. The commandment Jesus gave to us that we should love one another (John 13:34, 15:12, 17) is not a burdensome command that must be obeyed but a loving instruction from God the Son who knows our lives depend on social interaction.

Our souls crave friendship and companionship and we have personally found that need most deeply met in the body of Christ. God’s Spirit inhabits His Church leading to common understandings among its members of the meaning of true love and service.

We can both look back over 45+ years of friends of God and ourselves being there for us when we needed them and when we just wanted to spend time with them. There have been some let downs along the way, as there are for anyone in this world, but the exceptions should really only reinforce the general rule that members of the church of Christ are those through whom we can have wonderful, real, human interactions in this world. And those interactions include in our case, thankfully, our marriage and relationships with our children. We are most blessed. Not everyone is so blessed.

The Spirit

If the Father looks after our bodily needs and the Son our needs for brothers and sisters then the Spirit ministers to the more hidden needs of the heart. The Spirit tells us in our hearts that we are children of God (Romans 8:15, 1 John 3:1, 2). He puts hope in our hearts of heaven (Eph. 1:14). He comforts us in all our different troubles (2 Cor. 1:3-7) and helps us to pray when we don’t know what to pray (Romans 8:26-27).

Because of the Holy Spirit we can worship God acceptably in Spirit and truth (John 4:23, 24).

We have experienced all the above and continue to do so. These experiences are backed up by Scripture.

We hope you don’t despise this little testimony of ours. We are just one couple’s example of how knowing God and Jesus Christ has affected us but our testimony is precious and meaningful to us.

There is even more that could be said about the goodness of God in our lives.

This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do. John 6:6

Questions are God’s way of bringing us closer to him. A relationship develops during the outworking – the back and forth – of unanswered questions. Once the answer comes the relationship growth brought about by that interaction changes or ends. That is why Jesus spent most of his time on earth asking questions or being asked questions rather than answering them.

Most of us have unanswered questions in our lives. They can range from the global to the deeply personal, from the simply annoying to the existential.

“What will we do when we retire and our income is cut in half?”

“Where will I get a house to live in that I can make a home?”

“Where is my life partner that I can marry and form a family with?”

Or as in John 6: “Where are we going to get enough money to pay for the food to feed all these people in our lives?”

The thing is: Jesus knows what he is intending to do.

And it will probably be something unprecedented in our experience.

Our tendency is to judge future prospects by past experiences. History does repeat itself and as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes: There is nothing new under the sun. Even the feeding of the five thousand was not unprecedented. Elijah had done something similar back in the days of the kings of Israel.

However the disciples were not expecting the answer that Jesus brought and normally we don’t either. In our anxious going over of possible scenarios and calculations we usually never correctly predict what is going to happen.

For the really serious, heartfelt issues that we face about loved ones being sick or in trouble, or difficult changes ahead, or anything else that hits our heart’s desires, the answer will always be found when we find where Jesus is at rest in the midst of the storm, the answer he has to the cry of our hearts. “Rabbi,” (which is translated “Teacher”) “where are you abiding?” John 1:38.

He knows what he intends to do.

Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it are the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23

It is a great secret to have the eyes of your heart opened so you know what is really going on down there. Paul prays that it might happen to us all: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, (Ephesians 1:18).

It is so important to know what you really want in your heart. As I have written elsewhere, the first thing Jesus (the Incarnate Word) is recorded as saying in John’s gospel is “What are you seeking?” or loosely translated, what do you really want?

God has put eternity in our hearts (Eccles. 3:11) so therefore what we really want will always have an eternal component to it. Actually, the eternal reality is the basis of our earthly most heartfelt desires. We are all looking for something that will eternally satisfy.

Some people know in their hearts that renting a house is just not it, they must own it. What they are doing is agreeing with God’s desire to give them an eternal permanent place they can call their own (John 14:1-3). They are sharing in the same hope as those who were looking for an eternal city among the fathers of faith (Hebrews 11:13-16). The hope in God that He will give to each one of us this place of security and permanence is a heart’s desire that cannot be denied. For some this will be the assurance of it coming in the future. For others a lot of that satisfaction can be found in this age here on the earth. As David said: “I certainly believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13). It becomes a tree of life to those who find that desire satisfied (Proverbs 13:12).

The same applies to any desire of the heart. They are all rooted in eternally valid and appropriate fulfillments.

So let the Spirit search you out and let you know what it is you really want. And don’t be afraid of the answer your heart gives.

Because the heart is the seat of the emotions, intellect and will (according to the bible) there are always strong feelings, intense and oft repeated thoughts and actions that arise out of the desires of our heart.

For all of us it could not be more obvious what we spend most of our time thinking of and doing. What is your most commonly watched TV program (is it “a house in the sun” for example)? Or is it a program containing a lot of human forms and relationships (“Love Island” anyone)?

What do you do to relax? What are you thinking of in your unguarded moments?

One way of looking at the Christian walk is that of capturing all those thoughts and bringing them to the Christ dwelling with you in your heart (2 Cor. 10:5). For Christ dwells in our hearts through faith:

…you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, ²² that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, ²³ and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴ and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:22-24.

The process of being renewed in the spirit of our minds includes the taking of every thought of our hearts captive to Christ and asking him what he thinks about it. Sometimes you might be surprised at his answers. We are very often not like him at all in the way we think (Isaiah 55:8) but we do have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16) to call on at all times if we choose to do so. Putting on the new man is to continuously walk in submission to the thoughts of Christ over our own thoughts.

Keep a constant watch over what your heart is thinking. Let God show you how your desires correspond to his. He put those desires in the heart of every child of God. He hasn’t made a mistake when he lets you reap the consequences of that sowing.

You don’t really understand the heart of God if you think he wouldn’t want you to both eat the cake in this life and also have it in the next. However, he does also know whether having just the eternal version of those two or both the eternal and temporal would be best for you.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalms 37:4.