Big Idea - In the previous passage, John tells us, "Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" Also, our faith is the victory! But where does this faith come from? If our faith is weak or we are struggling to believe, is there anything that can be done? Often, faith is described as a blind leap into the darkness. That is, you just have to believe, but there can be no basis or reason for our belief. Is that true? That is not John's view of faith. There is a basis for our faith. It is rooted and grounded in truth that can be known and verified. It is this conviction that something is true that nurtures and develops faith. The real question, then, is how can we know that Jesus is for real and that He is who He claimed to be?

John says we can know who Jesus is with great confidence on the basis of the witnesses who testify about Him. Philosophers tell us there are four primary ways to know something: by empirical evidence, by the voice of authority, by rationalism, and by intuition. John shows us that there is evidence for the truth of the Gospel in each of these realms, but the one that is most convincing and reliable is the witness of the Holy Spirit, which we experience intuitively. That is how we believe - through the confirming witness of the Holy Spirit. What we must believe is that Jesus is the Son of God who was sent by the Father as the propitiation for our sins. The result of our belief is that we possess eternal life, which is a life right with God, out from under the curse of death and condemnation. The practical application of this truth is that the way we build our faith is by believing the message and turning inward to hear the confirming voice of the Spirit, validating it as true. It also means we do not need to convince people of the Gospel message. We are called to be witnesses by faithfully proclaiming the message, but it is the Spirit who must validate the truthfulness of it in a person's heart.