You Just Know...

I've been reading the book of Romans in the Bible lately. The whole Bible is wonderful to me, but right now this particular book is so incredibly amazing, overwhelming and humbling. I use to kind of skip over Romans because I thought it was so hard to understand. I'll admit even now, it is deep, but it is absolutely full of necessary teachings for Christians. I don't understand everything that is in there, but the more I read it the more the understanding comes to me. And that's the Holy Spirit -- He reveals the meaning of his Word to us, maybe not all at once but gradually sometimes. Romans is not a book that you can just casually skim over quickly. For me, I have to read slowly and stop and absorb almost every verse. I don't mind taking my time with it. It is changing my life and growing me spiritually in a way that can only happen by reading the Word.

There are so many things I want to write about from Romans, but this post would get too long if I mentioned everything I've learned. One verse that stuck out to me in Romans 8 a week or two ago is verse 16: The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. For some reason, I thought this verse was so amazing because to me it says that the Holy Spirit confirms with my spirit that I am his child. I have such a hard time putting into words what I'm thinking right now about this, but it's like when my daughter asked me how I knew for sure that her dad was "the one" I was supposed to marry. I told you her when the right one comes along, you just know. I don't know what is is but you just know deep inside. That is how it is when the Holy Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God's children -- you just know. You know that you've believed that Jesus died on a cross for the sins you've committed and then he confirms it in your spirit so that you don't have to wonder if your belief is real or not.

What an awesome God of love we serve. He has given us the Bible which is his holy Word, and he's given us his Spirit to witness with our spirit.