As Christians, we probably know more than we know we know.
If we are genuinely born again, we will have received the Holy Spirit into our lives. We will be born from above, being born of God. He will show us all the things we need to know.
Born again
As born again believers, we will have been given a new heart and new spirit (John 3:6-7). Our human spirit, which was previously dead to God thorough sin, will have come alive and will be quickened to know God as our Heavenly Father.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
Romans 8:14-17
This is one of the key differences between Christianity and other faiths. God becomes our Father when we acknowledge Jesus as His Son and make Him Lord of our lives. No other religion gives us a relationship with God like this, nor does any declare that God has an only begotten Son (1 John 4:9).
God is not only a Father, He is the Father to those who believe and receive Jesus as Lord. Not only this, but we also receive the guarantee of the Spirit. We receive the Holy Spirit as our Teacher, Guide and Leader in life as believers.
Knowing inside
How do we know we are saved and born of the Spirit? When He bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. We know on the inside, in our regenerated spirit.
But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Titus 3:4-7
By His Spirit within we know for sure that we are saved. We know for certain that we are born again. There is no doubt. There is no confusion. We know definitively.
In fact, we are not His unless we have the Spirit in our lives.
Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
Romans 8:9b
True Christians know that they know that they are born again. It becomes part of our nature to know who we are in Christ.
The anointing
The other good news is that we receive the anointing from the Holy Spirit and it teaches us as well as gives us intimate knowledge of His relationship with us holistically.
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
1 John 2:20
We will have the ability to know wrong from right, truth from lies, light from darkness. It is the Holy Spirit who anoints us at the new birth. He is in us, with us and will be upon us when we are baptised with the Holy Spirit.
See how the anointing teaches in regard to all things. He is the Spirit of Truth and we are now connected to Him and can hear from Him, and better still know things through and by Him.
But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
1 John 2:27
He teaches us. His presence in our life, alongside the Logos, the written Word of God, helps to lead us into all the truth.
And this is why there are things we can know that we don’t yet know we can know, because He knows all things and He is in us, with us and upon us. He is God the Holy Spirit. He has anointed us to know things.
Outpouring of the Spirit
The anointing is likened to outpouring of oil that was poured upon he head of those who were set apart for a special task by the Prophets of old under God’s direction.
Under the New Covenant all who are born again receive the anointing from the Holy Spirit and are equipped for the task for which we are set apart. He gives us understanding beyond our own intelligence, or knowledge or even experience.
The anointing is a supernatural download from the Father through His Spirit.
But as it is written:
1 Corinthians 2:9-16
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Amen.
