How do you know you know Jesus?

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I’m asking the question. I’m wondering where this will go if I leave it this open. Later I will probably complain about the direction but that’s my fault.😃
 
Truthstalker said:
I’m asking the question. I’m wondering where this will go if I leave it this open. Later I will probably complain about the direction but that’s my fault.😃
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I spend time with Him in prayer and He has revealed His love and compassion for me. I know Him.

In Peace,
DS
 
Hi,

Since I have accepted Him as my Lord and Savior and repented of my sins, I feel different, I act different. I have become a new person.😃 Now, of course I need to grow in knowledge of Jesus so I will bear much fruit.
I really thinkone of the only ways to know you know Jesus is to study the bible. The bible is our love letter from God to us so that we may KNOW who God is and have an intimate relationship with Him. Oh and of course we need to pray and have a teachable Spirit. We really never stop learning. Even in heaven we continue learning about God.😃
 
ALLFORHIM said:
Hi,

Since I have accepted Him as my Lord and Savior and repented of my sins, I feel different, I act different. I have become a new person.😃 Now, of course I need to grow in knowledge of Jesus so I will bear much fruit.
I really thinkone of the only ways to know you know Jesus is to study the bible. The bible is our love letter from God to us so that we may KNOW who God is and have an intimate relationship with Him. Oh and of course we need to pray and have a teachable Spirit. We really never stop learning. Even in heaven we continue learning about God.😃
Click to expand...
Why do you need to bear fruit if you are already saved? Can you still be saved if you do not grow in knowledge and bear much fruit? Yes or no. If the answer is “yes” then why in your definition of being saved do you include something other than faith alone?

But wait you can’t be saved by faith alone. Salvation also requires repentance and love of God and a “profession by mouth” that Jesus is your personal lord and savior. If faith is all that is required then why not make the profession in the silence of your heart in faith. Why would someone else need to hear it to make it count? Must other people be a meditory between you and God?

Protestantism is so confusing. It changes to often to be interesting.
 
Because I receive Him in the Most Holy Eucharist.

Sean Boyle, while I may agree with your observation I don’t think this thread is the appropriate place for a discussion of that sort. It seems to me to be off topic from “How do you know you know Jesus”, I could be wrong though.
 
Aureole said:
Because I receive Him in the Most Holy Eucharist.

Sean Boyle, while I may agree with your observation I don’t think this thread is the appropriate place for a discussion of that sort. It seems to me to be off topic from “How do you know you know Jesus”, I could be wrong though.
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You are absolutely right!

I apologise for that. My fault, I’m truely sorry for veering of course. My passion for sharing the truth gets the better of me sometimes.

I agree with your answer.
 
CatHicks said:
Eucharistic Adoration, mass and prayer.
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I would add to these, Confession, the Rosary, devotional Scripture reading, and works of charity, especially the works of mercy.

Also, just a point (something that occurred to me a while back, and changed how I look at things) we don’t so much have to “know” Jesus as “be in a relationship” with Him.

We become related to Jesus through Baptism, which is to be born into His family.

When we are first born into our natural families, we don’t know our father, our mother, or our brothers and sisters. This happens over time. But we are related to them right from the start.

It’s the same with our relationship with Jesus. We become related to Him when we become members of His Church, at baptism. We get to know Him as we take advantage of the gifts that He gives to us through the Church - the Sacraments, the Scriptures, Holy Tradition, prayer, discipline, and so on.
 
Sean_Boyle said:
You are absolutely right!

I apologise for that. My fault, I’m truely sorry for veering of course. My passion for sharing the truth gets the better of me sometimes.

I agree with your answer.
Click to expand...
Thank you, because I do not want to derail this thread.😃
AFH
 
Truthstalker said:
I’m asking the question. I’m wondering where this will go if I leave it this open. Later I will probably complain about the direction but that’s my fault.😃
Click to expand...
Sounds like a trick question or something. It’s very vague, I’ll give you that, and open for interpretation. 😉
I, personally, know Jesus through countless Bible stories about Him and His life. Through prayer and reading, I’m constantly getting to know Him more and more each and every day.
How do I know this? It’s a simple matter of faith in God. 😃
 
ALLFORHIM said:
Hi,

Since I have accepted Him as my Lord and Savior and repented of my sins, I feel different, I act different. I have become a new person.😃 Now, of course I need to grow in knowledge of Jesus so I will bear much fruit.
I really thinkone of the only ways to know you know Jesus is to study the bible. The bible is our love letter from God to us so that we may KNOW who God is and have an intimate relationship with Him. Oh and of course we need to pray and have a teachable Spirit. We really never stop learning. Even in heaven we continue learning about God.😃
Click to expand...
You said it better than I did. lol 😃
 
We protestants believe that true faith is active faith Eph 2:10.

We do not believe that faith is mere mental agreement with the mesasage of the gospel.

Jesus is our Lord and Savior, just as he is yours.
 
These are some good answers. Yes, the question is vague but there’s no trick there. Let me answer it, but this answer, as you have seen, is not the only way to go about it.

More years ago than I care to remember I discovered ultimate despair: that place where reason isn’t valid, because the human mind isn’t valid, where one cannot trust one’s own senses to adequately report the world or one’s own mind think correctly about the world or even itself, or even admit that the sense of self-existence was valid. Without light, without hope, without even darkness, there was nothing but despair, and that was in doubt, and doubt was in doubt. Did I doubt? I didn’t know. How could I assess anything, did anything matter, was I really alive or did anything really exist? There was no solution, no way out, no exit, no hope, and no future.

Then Jesus threw me a rope. “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.” I could know things, because He upholds reality and is rational, and made me able to think; I could know truth, because He is truth, and is faithful; I coould be alive because He gave me life, breathed into me and made me a living soul, and He is the one who draws me to the Father.

I cannot know anything without Him, but with Him I know everything. I cannot act or hope without Him, but with Him life has meaning, life has hope, and so I climb the rope. He is the rope, the strength and power to climb the rope, and the one who made me desire to climb it and who made me.

I know Him, because He knew me first. I love, because He loved me first. I don’t have to worry about my insufficiencies and inadequacies, because He is all-sufficient and more than fulfills all my needs by His grace. He threw down the door of my nothingness and light poured in. Light continues to pour in in more ways than I can count or recognize.

I know I know Jesus because He is the one who makes it possible, He started the relationship, and He is faithful to me to not trick me into only thinking I know Him. He embodies not only hope but faith, love, joy, gentleness and a thousand other wonder qualities, so many, in fact, that it will take eternity to praise Him for all of them. In fact, I think I will.
 
Sean_Boyle said:
Why do you need to bear fruit if you are already saved?
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A short answer might be: He commands it.​

A longer answer would point out that salvation has - at least - four aspects:
It is a definitively accomplished and final fact. because Jesus has ruined the kigdom of satan, destroyed sin, & abolished death.

While for the individual it is a:
  • past fact
  • present reality
  • future promise
    How do we have it here and now ? The action in the individual (as well as in the Church, which is a communion of individuals in one common Christ) of the Holy Spirit of Christ - the Spirit Whom He sent from HIs Father to bring about in every age & nation what He brought about during His earthly life. The Holy Spirit communicates to all who are Christ’s the same salvation, the same life, the same Christ & all that is His. Were it not so, the Church would evaporate. It is upheld by God, not by sinful man - because it is the beginning, in the world God created, of the Kingdom of God; it is not the kingdom of man (!!), but of the Eternal King. And He is more than able to maintain His own royal power, authority, & throne; and this Kingdom is a present fact. And kings have subjects - Christians are those subjects whom He has induced to surrender to Him, while there is still time to do so.
Salvation is a royal gift - it is a condition of total well-being, and it cannot be fully enjoyed in this world, because the Kingdom , or Kingship, or Reign of God cannot be fully enjoyed in this world; it is from “beyond” this world. ##

As for the other questions:
Can you still be saved if you do not grow in knowledge and bear much fruit? Yes or no. If the answer is “yes” then why in your definition of being saved do you include something other than faith alone?
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Of course - the thief on the Cross had no good works. The work of believers is to believe - and this believing, contains the whole Christian life; so nothing can be added to it. That which is complete, does not allow of addition.​

BTW, to put all the emphasis on the Christian’s acts is lop-sided - Christians cannot do anything without Christ; the only difference betwee them and all other men, is that Christians realise this. What Christ does for us, by subduing us to Himself, is far more important than what little good it may please Him to do through us - we always remain “unprofitable servants” (Luke 17.10); He has no need of us, but humbles Himself to do through us sinners what He could do far more effectively by the power of His word alone. ##
But wait you can’t be saved by faith alone.
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There is no other way. Salvation is by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone, or it is not salvation at all. Our best works, outside of Christ, are no better than stinking and infected swamps of corruption, filth, & rotteness. They become valuable for salvation when we are laid hold of by Christ & justified freely by His grace - & not one moment sooner. Apart from that, they are no better than excrement.​

The Reformers call them sins, because in comparison with the matchlessly perfect work of Christ, the best and most excellent things we do outside of Him are nothing but sin. They may look, & be, very impressive & worthwhile, taken by themselves - but in comparison with the unrivalled perfection and glory of Christ & His works, they are nothing but rottenness & blasphemy. He is clean - they are filthy in comparison with Him. “Even the heavens are not pure”, in comparison with God - how much less clean must be the works of sinful men who are not reconciled with God. So salvation can only be by the free mercy of God - IOW, it can only be by grace. And faith in the Giver, is the only way to receive it. ##
Salvation also requires repentance and love of God and a “profession by mouth” that Jesus is your personal lord and savior. If faith is all that is required then why not make the profession in the silence of your heart in faith. Why would someone else need to hear it to make it count? Must other people be a meditory between you and God?
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Of course we need a Mediator - Jesus Christ, Who is God & man. He is our High Priest, Who represents man to God & God to man, Who has reconciled both. Under no circumstances could we ever draw near to the Father without Him. Jesus Christ is the only mediator we do need - the BVM has no place in this, because she does not come from the Father, nor was she made sin for us, nor is she our Saviour, nor does she know all that is the mind of the Father, nor is she our HIgh Priest. She is a saint - and no more: as though it were not an inconceivable honour for mere human beings, creatures of dust, beings wholly without any good at all that God has not given them, to be saints.​

Protestantism is so confusing. It changes to often to be interesting.
Click to expand...
 
Truthstalker said:
These are some good answers. Yes, the question is vague but there’s no trick there. Let me answer it, but this answer, as you have seen, is not the only way to go about it.

More years ago than I care to remember I discovered ultimate despair: that place where reason isn’t valid, because the human mind isn’t valid, where one cannot trust one’s own senses to adequately report the world or one’s own mind think correctly about the world or even itself, or even admit that the sense of self-existence was valid. Without light, without hope, without even darkness, there was nothing but despair, and that was in doubt, and doubt was in doubt. Did I doubt? I didn’t know. How could I assess anything, did anything matter, was I really alive or did anything really exist? There was no solution, no way out, no exit, no hope, and no future.

Then Jesus threw me a rope. “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.” I could know things, because He upholds reality and is rational, and made me able to think; I could know truth, because He is truth, and is faithful; I coould be alive because He gave me life, breathed into me and made me a living soul, and He is the one who draws me to the Father.

I cannot know anything without Him, but with Him I know everything. I cannot act or hope without Him, but with Him life has meaning, life has hope, and so I climb the rope. He is the rope, the strength and power to climb the rope, and the one who made me desire to climb it and who made me.

I know Him, because He knew me first. I love, because He loved me first. I don’t have to worry about my insufficiencies and inadequacies, because He is all-sufficient and more than fulfills all my needs by His grace. He threw down the door of my nothingness and light poured in. Light continues to pour in in more ways than I can count or recognize.

I know I know Jesus because He is the one who makes it possible, He started the relationship, and He is faithful to me to not trick me into only thinking I know Him. He embodies not only hope but faith, love, joy, gentleness and a thousand other wonder qualities, so many, in fact, that it will take eternity to praise Him for all of them. In fact, I think I will.
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Beautiful. And I know of what you speak, as Jesus threw me a rope as well while in a well of unfathomable grief. He lifted me out of the darkness and has shown me joy, service, and love. I now live to be His hands, feet, and voice. And I love sitting in front of Him getting to know Him more and more in the Blessed Sacrament.

God is love!

In Peace,
DS
 
“A tree is known by its fruit”

I know that I know Jesus if my actions are like those who know Jesus.

More specifically, If I am lying, stealing, committing adultery, filled with murderous anger, then I would not be close to Jesus. If I am able to assist those in real need while not getting caught up in the materialist consumerism that is so rampant today, then I know I am close to Jesus.

If I pray and am at peace with God, I know Jesus.

Jim
 
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