How do you know God is real?

[easternstar]

Some basic questions: How do you know God is real?
Does God communicate with you?
Do you know God, and not just about God?

 

[JonC]

I think there are various levels of knowing.

I can look at creation and know God is real.
I can read His Word and know He is real.

But this type of knowing is by reason and explanation.

I know God is real because of His work on my life. He has changed me. That is experiential and cannot adequately be communicated.

A good comparison would be knowing a fire is hot because you saw people cooking on it and believed those who told you it is hot verses actually feeling the heat.

 

[Ascetic X]

Good is real to me because…

1. Miraculous answers to prayer.
2. His gift to me of a gorgeous, godly, thoroughly Christian wife for 21 years, who wanted to marry me even though I was at rock bottom.
3. The Bible resonates in my heart as the true voice of God.
4. Holy Ghost hunches — inner advice that goes beyond what my intellect could achieve or my senses could perceive.
5. His frequent protection of me in very dangerous situations.
6. Evidence of the vast complex universe He created, that could not have spontaneously originated out of nothingness.

 

[Scarlett O.]

Some basic questions: How do you know God is real?
Does God communicate with you?
Do you know God, and not just about God?

I can only answer this personally. I can't speak for others. Here's how I know that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are real.

(A) This may sound weird, but ...... I taught science [life, earth, and physical] to junior high students for many years. I was already a Christian and the more I taught science, the firmer my faith became in the reality of God and all that the Bible teaches. There is too much order, too much beauty, too much unexplainable, too much overwhelmingly profound for there not to be the LORD in charge of it all.

(B) I believe what the Bible says - in faith - about everything. Parts, I have struggled with, had to dig really deep for understanding, and even some has put me to sleep. But, in faith, I believe it all to be the truth.

(C) Yes, God does speak to me. He chastises me, helps me greatly, reminds me, teaches me, loves me, and through the LITTLE things, God does these things.

(D) To know God, you and I must behave as if we are in a holy and divine relationship. We must talk to him, read his word, be obedient to it, love others as ourselves, give thanks to him, bring our burdens to him, and make this relationship the priority.

 

[easternstar]

Thanks for all your replies so far, very good ones indeed. I have strongly believed all my life, but now in my senior years, I am struggling to keep my faith. I feel that God does not communicate with me. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be in me, but I feel nothing.

 

[Ascetic X]

Thanks for all your replies so far, very good ones indeed. I have strongly believed all my life, but now in my senior years, I am struggling to keep my faith. I feel that God does not communicate with me. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be in me, but I feel nothing.

The Holy Spirit is not a feeling, but I know what you mean.

When my wife died a year ago, and my intense, ferocious faith failed to result in a miracle healing, my faith was damaged in an unexpected and dismal manner. I was a million percent sure she would be delivered because “by His stripes ye are healed”, etc. So I too struggle to maintain my faith in the midst of anguish, confusion, despair, loneliness, mourning, and grieving brain fog.

Just days before she took her last breath, my beloved wife declared “God is in control” — a constant theme in her Henry Blackaby training. I am disoriented, fearful, incompetent (she managed nearly all aspects of the home and our life together, while I coasted), and now even feel condemned by many Bible passages that I neglected to live up to.

But I feel God will honor my efforts to trust Him, in the midst of my excruciating emotional pain, and in spite of my hatred of being a widower and the devastating loss and nearly delirious depression.

 

[Scarlett O.]

Thanks for all your replies so far, very good ones indeed. I have strongly believed all my life, but now in my senior years, I am struggling to keep my faith. I feel that God does not communicate with me. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be in me, but I feel nothing.

Everybody on this board has had dry spells of feeling absolutely nothing. Thank goodness our faith is not about how much we "feel". Nothing wrong with feelings. God has feelings. He created feelings.

But feelings shouldn't take the lead. Belief/faith takes the lead.

It's like a train. The engine, the faith/belief car, pulls the train down the track and leads. The middle cars, our life, follows the engine - the faith.

Our feelings are the caboose. When led by the faith engine, feelings have no choice but to stay on the track and stay where they should.

​

 

[Tea]

I’ve faced numerous challenges and hardships throughout my life, and currently, I find myself in the midst of one.

There have been times when I’ve considered that accepting my situation would be much simpler if I believed there was no God, that nothing bad has a purpose, and it’s all just random chaos in the universe. However, despite my efforts, I find it difficult to abandon my faith, as hard as I may try.

Once the dust has settled, it strengthens my belief that the reason my faith remains intact is due to a divine act of preservation by God.

 

[Ascetic X]

I’ve faced numerous challenges and hardships throughout my life, and currently, I find myself in the midst of one.

There have been times when I’ve considered that accepting my situation would be much simpler if I believed there was no God, that nothing bad has a purpose, and it’s all just random chaos in the universe. However, despite my efforts, I find it difficult to abandon my faith, as hard as I may try.

Once the dust has settled, it strengthens my belief that the reason my faith remains intact is due to a divine act of preservation by God.

Faith includes triumphant patience, a stubborn will to believe that God is good and real — in spite of negative feelings, nightmarish losses, cataclysmic set-backs, unfavorable circumstances, spiritual defeats (failing to be free from sins), long delays in deliverance, or even what seems to be non-fulfillment of divine promises.

Abraham waited 25 years for the promise of a son to be fulfilled. God first made the promise when Abraham was 75 years old, and his son Isaac was born when Abraham was 100 years old. Sarah was 90 years old when she gave birth to Isaac. Each day that went by after God’s promise was given, things got more hopeless, the promise could have looked more absurd, as their bodies aged. Each day, God might have seemed less and less real to Abraham and Sarah.

So if we responded positively to the message of salvation, but are now just barely hanging onto faith, we should be glad that we still have the desire to believe God is real and are trying, however feebly, to regain our deep spirituality.

My Christian faith was primarily just grandiose head knowledge most of my life, plus long periods of miserable backsliding.

I desperately attempt to identify in my past any instances of actually obeying the strict commands of Jesus or any compliance with church epistle instructions.

I loved reading the Bible and devout books, engaged in prayers often, attended some churches briefly, participated in the Jesus Revolution in Berkeley, California, attracted and held onto an authentic Christian wife for 21 glorious years, taught a Sunday school class with her, produced some God honoring synthpop, thought about God frequently, felt some zeal that various individuals be saved, and shared my faith testimony a few times.

But rarely did I really love God more than anything else, turn the other cheek, suffer insults silently, refrain from temper tantrum retaliation, give to the poor, visit the sick, empathize with tragedies reported on the news, pray for persecuted Christians and fallen pastors, exercise kindness unselfishly, refuse to enjoy worldly entertainment (music, movies, tv, books), honor my parents, or hate fleshly self-indulgence.

1st spiritual awakening = accepting gospel as teenager at Mennonite church camp. 2nd spiritual awakening = hitting rock bottom after decades of backsliding, returning to Baptist church where I met my wife, resolving to be reverent and spiritually mature. 3rd spiritual awakening = wife died, saw flaws in my spiritual leadership in my marriage, in a panic trying to confess each mistake, repent, and be completely pure and godly as I enter the final phase of my mostly wasted life.

Glance at your problems. Gaze at the Savior. I think the verse that says the kingdom of heaven is entered violently may mean we have to aggressively force ourselves to trust and obey God and exercise merciless cruelty to our ungodly thoughts and behaviors.

 

[easternstar]

I believe God exists, and I continue, even if abstractly of late, to have faith. I am struggling to hold onto an active strong faith. I like to watch John Ankerberg's show, and two of my favorite guests have been Dr. Stephen Mayer and Dr. Hugh Ross. They have helped me to have a firm conviction of the existence of God. My problem of late is that I am wondering about God's nature -- what kind of God is he. I also watch a lot of other TV ministries, including Charismatic, which of course emphasize miracles and faith healing. In the past, I went to a good many Charismatic worship services and saw the usual spectacle of people lying all over the floor, but I have never seen what I could verify as actual healings. But Andrew Wommack, for example, says his wife and son were raised from the dead. I know the Bible quotes Jesus as saying that his followers will do even greater things than He did, and I wonder why so many churches are devoid of those miracles, but I have also seen some 'fakeness' in Charismatic churches.

I need healing, but I can't even get God to communicate with me. I pray, but get nothing. I've seen John Burke's podcasts talking about NDE's. These are pretty convincing, and I hear people on TV all the time talking about God telling them something, and that God will make himself known if you just ask. I've asked, and gotten nothing. So I'm at the point of wondering if God is a deist God. Or why, if all these other people who claim that God regularly answers them, speaks to them, heals them, directs them, reveals himself to them, etc, then why not me? I don't need to know about God, I need to know God. I want to have an intimate personal relationship with him, but it seems he doesn't with me, if he is even that kind of God. I don't understand the silence. I cry out, but hear only the sound of my own voice.

 

[Ascetic X]

I also watch a lot of other TV ministries, including Charismatic, which of course emphasize miracles and faith healing. In the past, I went to a good many Charismatic worship services and saw the usual spectacle of people lying all over the floor, but I have never seen what I could verify as actual healings. But Andrew Wommack, for example, says his wife and son were raised from the dead. I know the Bible quotes Jesus as saying that his followers will do even greater things than He did, and I wonder why so many churches are devoid of those miracles, but I have also seen some 'fakeness' in Charismatic churches….

I need healing, but I can't even get God to communicate with me. I pray, but get nothing….

You sound very much like me, easternstar. God communicates to us through circumstances, events, Bible study, music, sermons, other people, and through a small inner whisper in stillness. Perhaps God has been shouting at you in unexpected “voices”.

I was in a non-trinitarian cult that absolutely believed in all the powers of the Holy Spirit. I was instantly healed of an ear problem, much pain, by a cult leader. They rejected slaying in the spirit, but embraced revelation manifestations. I myself seemed to raise from the dead a suicidal girlfriend who swallowed too many pain pills, hoping to overdose. Her sister thought she was dead, but I got her revived by praying.

Yet, this was an evil heretical brainwashing cult, and when I tried to return to traditional faith, I saw only cessationists who denied any supernatural powers for believers, as opposed to continuationist charismatics who largely were into weird, dubious (to be polite) operations, including fake sounding tongues and Toronto Blessing barking, seizures, holy laughter, acting drunk, grave soaking, etc.

My beliefs are mainly Baptist, but I am not a cessationist. I stopped speaking in tongues because it seemed like imitative gibberish. However, I do believe in divine healing directly from God or by a believer ministering it by laying on hands or silent remote decrees. Even though my wife died of cancer a year ago, in spite of my ferocious faith and aggressive prayers, I refuse to quit believing in healing.

My untreated glaucoma recently seemed to suddenly get worse, saw halos around lights at night, so I asked Jesus to get rid of it. Went to a new eye doctor who said he thought I was wrongly diagnosed with glaucoma and never had it. Was it psychosomatic? The halos no longer appeared. My eye sight now seems nearly perfect.

When preachers claim the powers and “sign gifts” of the Holy Spirit stopped when the original apostles died, I see no scripture to prove this. It reminds me of reformed churches not having enough funds for an organ or piano, so a new doctrine of acapella music arose and all instruments were banned.

It is heroic to persist in sincere faith when virtually everything seems to oppose it. We walk by faith, not sight, not leaning unto our own understanding. Abraham might have thought God was absent, silent, ineffectual for 25 years, until Isaac was born.

My own personal creed does not completely align with any denomination, but I also pray for and try to practice Christian unity.

Hebrews 11:1 states that faith is the SUBSTANCE of things NOT seen, the proof that we have them, even though no senses evidence yet exists.

Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him…

 

[easternstar]

You sound very much like me, easternstar. God communicates to us through circumstances, events, Bible study, music, sermons, other people, and through a small inner whisper in stillness. Perhaps God has been shouting at you in unexpected “voices”.

I was in a non-trinitarian cult that absolutely believed in all the powers of the Holy Spirit. I was instantly healed of an ear problem, much pain, by a cult leader. They rejected slaying in the spirit, but embraced revelation manifestations. I myself seemed to raise from the dead a suicidal girlfriend who swallowed too many pain pills, hoping to overdose. Her sister thought she was dead, but I got her revived by praying.

Yet, this was an evil heretical brainwashing cult, and when I tried to return to traditional faith, I saw only cessationists who denied any supernatural powers for believers, as opposed to continuationist charismatics who largely were into weird, dubious (to be polite) operations, including fake sounding tongues and Toronto Blessing barking, seizures, holy laughter, acting drunk, grave soaking, etc.

My beliefs are mainly Baptist, but I am not a cessationist. I stopped speaking in tongues because it seemed like imitative gibberish. However, I do believe in divine healing directly from God or by a believer ministering it by laying on hands or silent remote decrees. Even though my wife died of cancer a year ago, in spite of my ferocious faith and aggressive prayers, I refuse to quit believing in healing.

My untreated glaucoma recently seemed to suddenly get worse, saw halos around lights at night, so I asked Jesus to get rid of it. Went to a new eye doctor who said he thought I was wrongly diagnosed with glaucoma and never had it. Was it psychosomatic? The halos no longer appeared. My eye sight now seems nearly perfect.

When preachers claim the powers and “sign gifts” of the Holy Spirit stopped when the original apostles died, I see no scripture to prove this. It reminds me of reformed churches not having enough funds for an organ or piano, so a new doctrine of acapella music arose and all instruments were banned.

It is heroic to persist in sincere faith when virtually everything seems to oppose it. We walk by faith, not sight, not leaning unto our own understanding. Abraham might have thought God was absent, silent, ineffectual for 25 years, until Isaac was born.

My own personal creed does not completely align with any denomination, but I also pray for and try to practice Christian unity.

Hebrews 11:1 states that faith is the SUBSTANCE of things NOT seen, the proof that we have them, even though no senses evidence yet exists.

Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him…

Thank you for this.
I was raised Baptist but have been in and out of different denominational and non-denominational churches over the years.
Lately, I'm just sad and depressed, and empty-feeling. And sick.