…which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. 2 Tim 1:12
Whatever headspace you are in, you are not alone. You know Him.
Paul was in prison. God enabled him to endure suffering because Paul knew the Lord. The One in whom he had believed. Paul lived and suffered victoriously out of his relational knowing of Christ. The place beyond knowing facts in your head. The place where we know love that surpasses knowledge (Ep 3:19). A place in our hearts beyond the prison of this fallen world.
The enemy wants us to believe we don’t know Him. He whispers if we really knew Him, we wouldn’t be struggling. We wouldn’t have doubts, temptations, failures. If we really knew Him, we’d be more disciplined, work harder, read more, pray more.
We know Him. The lie of the enemy is that we don’t.
There is an antidote to these attacks. Martyn Lloyd-Jones gives amazing advice. Talk to yourself instead of listening to yourself. Remind yourself you know Him. Remember you have known Him since you were born again.
We know Him because the fight against sin continues in us. Being in this struggle with sin is proof we know Him, not proof we don’t. If we didn’t know Him, we wouldn’t care. The reason we fight, fall, and get back up is because the Spirit who unites us to Christ won’t let us go.
We must decide today to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Co 2:2). Let that decision be proof the Spirit is working in us.
We struggle because we are His, and we know Him. He is able to guard our life, our soul, our eternal wellbeing until the day of His return (2 Ti 1:12). As we deepen in knowing Christ, we anxiously anticipate seeing Him fully as He is…(1 Jo 3:2). Till then, we walk by faith.
The Next Question
Have you let temptation, emotions, the things in which you suffer and struggle, rather than your faith-enabled union with Christ, tell you that you don’t know Him?