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Fourth, there is evidence of an ongoing growing relationship with God. The writer of Hebrews and Paul writes,

"Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness.’"

"But just as it is written, ‘Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.’ For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God." (1 Cor 2:9-10)

Christianity is relationship with Jesus. The whole purpose of Jesus’ salvation for us was to bring our spirits back to life and back into relationship with Him so we could talk to him and receive from Him through our spirits and again have a relationship with Him. God’s plan for man was for him to be lead by the Holy Spirit through his human spirit. When Adam and Eve sinned, their spirit died. As a result, their ability to be led by God by the Holy Spirit through their human spirit became impossible. It was for this reason that God through the prophets revealed Himself to us through the written word so that we would know something about God and about His moral character. Without a relationship with God, the only means of moral rightness or wrongness that we have in life is through what is revealed in the Bible.

But the relationship of the Christian who is born from above changes all that because when he is born from above through the Holy Spirit, his spirit comes back to life and he enters back into relationship with God so that the Apostle Paul explains,

"But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter." (Rom 7:6)

"Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit creates-life." (2 Cor 3:5-6)

The letter represents the Law: God’s Word, whereas the Spirit represents our relationship with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. It also represents not being changed in our lives through the Law but through our on-going relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

As I was grieved and pondering over this man and his life one day, the Lord showed me that he was not saved and that he did not know Him. It was not too long after this that a mutual friend of his and mine came by to visit. During our visit he brought up this man and expressed a concern about him. I shared with him my concern about him also and what I had believed the Lord shared with me about him. I explained to this friend I will call Steve,

"Steve, you have a lot of problems in your life that some of us would consider very big problems, but whenever we get together and share, you will say over and over to me, ‘This morning in my quiet time the Lord showed this to me about my life and gave me an answer to this. . .’ which shows me that you are saved because every time I see you, you share with me Your relationship with Jesus. In two years of working with this man he never once shared with me anything about his relationship with God or anything whenever I would ask him to seek the Lord about something in my life I needed wisdom on. It was not until recently that I believe the Lord showed me that this was because he did not know Him, he did not have a relationship with God. The reason why I know you have a relationship with God is because whenever I see you, you talk with me about your relationship with God, what He is ministering to you. This man never has."

He astoundingly came to agree with my evaluation.

The fifth evidence of a person knowing Jesus is his obedience to Christ. The Apostle John wrote:

"By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." (1 John 2:3-4)

John tells us clearly in this passage that if a person has truly come to know Jesus, he or she will obey His commands to them in His Word and to them personally. Later John also tells us that our obedience to Jesus is also evidence of our love for God’s children. He writes:

"The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. . . . Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments." (1 John 5:1-2)

We have already established in this Chapter that Water Baptism does not save us, but if someone says he knows Jesus, but is resistant to obey Him in Water Baptism, the Bible teaches we have a right to question the legitimacy of his or her salvation. A person who is saved loves Jesus and wants to please and obey him. A person who is saved is not looking for reasons to disobey Jesus. Jesus said in Matthew 7:20-21,

"So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven."

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