Sitting in this quiet room in my house, I am told that there exists, a multitude of intelligent information of various sorts from various sources, permeating the air all around me. Now I have the choice to believe that or not to believe it. But regardless of what I believe, it is either there or it isn't. For some time now, I have sat here straining my ears and eyes, listening for and looking for that intelligent information, but I cannot detect any intelligent information permeating the air around me. Based on first hand experience to this point, my inclination is not to believe it exists.
Then I take a radio, turn it on, turn the tuning knob a little bit, and it picks up (I am told) signal frequencies permeating the air around me, and suddenly I hear music, and talking, and all sorts of intelligent information that the radio has picked up out of the air around me. Alas, there must be intelligent information permeating the air around me that my ears cannot "hear," but that the radio receiver can "hear" and transforms it into audible signals that I can hear.
Next, I turn on a television and turn the channel selector a couple of clicks, and lo and behold, I get a picture of people moving around and voices emitting from the speaker loud and clear. My eyes could not "see" those people in the air around me, nor hear their voices, but the receiver of the television has the capability to decode intelligent signals permeating the air around me and turn them into pictures and sound! My eyes and ears could not do it!
There is another matter that now occurs to me. Something else exists that permeates the air around me that my eyes cannot see and my ears cannot audibly hear. It is the Spirit of God! Many claim that He is not there. After all, they cannot see and or hear Him, just like I cannot see or hear the television signals that are all around the room I am in. But if I chose not to believe that the television and radio signals exist, and never turn on a radio or television to either prove or disprove what I believe, it would not change whether the signals are there or not. The same is true of the Spirit of God.
Now the Bible tells us that: "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and
he cannot understand them, because they are
spiritually discerned." (
1 Corinthians 2:14) Just like I, without a radio or television device, cannot tune my eyes and ears to the video and audio signals that permeate the air around me, a person who has not been indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God cannot tune into, discern, understand, or accept the things of God.
The only way to "receive" the intelligent information, transmitted from radio and television stations, permeating the air around me is to "turn on" a device capable of "discerning" the encoded intelligence within the carrier frequency's signal. The only way to receive "the things that come from the Spirit of God" is to be able to "spiritually discern" them (transform them into experiential reality), by having one's heart "tuned" to God! Those who are not "tuned" to God the Bible calls "spiritually dead." The only way a spiritually dead person (all unbelievers) can have spiritual life and spiritual discernment is to receive it as a gift from God through faith in Jesus Christ.
When a person realizes they lack the ability to meet God's requirements for righteousness on their own, and believe their only hope is the redemption provided by Jesus Christ, who bore and paid for our sins on the cross, then God promises, "
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart." (
Jeremiah 24:7) "The world (unbelievers) cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for
he lives with you and will be in you." (
John 14:17)
With the Spirit of God in me, now I have a receiver capable of "tuning into" God ("
know me"), and not only
know Him, but actually "hear" from Him through that still, small voice of my conscience, and have a close, warm, and abiding relationship with Him. How do I, a believer, know that God is real? I have the Holy Spirit (receiver) in me capable of "hearing" Him. Why do non-believers deny the existence of God? The same way I could deny the existence of video and audio intelligence permeating the air around me . . . by never perceiving through a device (enabler) capable of transforming them into something
I can experience (radio, television, Holy Spirit)!
I'm still sitting here in this room. I have turned off the radio and television so that I can no longer hear or see the audio and video images that the air around me contain. I cannot see my Lord and my God either. All is quiet and serene . . . but I know they are there!
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