Burden of proof is a concept not only found in the legal world but also in our philosophical and scientific worlds. Each has slightly different requirements for proof and their effects are profoundly different. The scientific burden concerns itself with the method for gathering the evidence, the philosophical burden is concerned about the meaning of the evidence gathered and the legal burden of proof is the obligation to shift the accepted conclusion away from an oppositional opinion to one’s own position.
I believe one of the main goals of a believer in God is the task of making disciples of Jesus. This to me means to present evidence that will convince any person we meet to also become a disciple of Jesus. But presenting evidence should not be a burden to the believer. This is because the evidence must originate from the spiritual world thus rendering all the human works inadmissible.
John 3:12-13 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
The Kingdom of God has come to earth from heaven. Jesus himself came from heaven and if you have experienced the rebirth by being born of the spirit then you are now a resident who is seated in heavenly places. Reliance on material evidence as proof of spiritual truth will never be effective. Moses held up a cross with a snake on it, and Jesus produced bread and fish but to people using only their material senses they could not understand the spiritual proof.
Aiding in the comprehension of spiritual truth is one of the reasons the Presence of God’s Spirit resides in our earthly human body. By doing this Holy spirit removes the burden from us to communicate spiritual understanding. There is nothing we can physically do to prove the existence of God because it never be accepted by those that are blind to the spirit realm. However when we lay down our human will and allow the will of Holy Spirit to live through us the spiritually blind can have their eyes are opened.
No person using material wisdom can love his enemy. No person in material body can walk on water, heal the sick, love, touch and associate with those who have been designated as social outcast. Even in American culture there are social reasons like clothing, job status, housing status, sexual orientations that put people on the fringe of society. It was not long ago when skin color and slavery kept people from full participation in society and if you are female there was a time when you were not allowed to vote having a full say in society.
Even today some corporate and religious organizations still have a glass ceilings for women limiting their organizational influence and authority. Divorce was and is an event that separated people from their prior social standing thus allowing issues like physical abuse, incest and other social dysfunctions to enter the next generation instead of being dealt with. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom from all these things. Jesus was sent and now we are sent to carry God’s Holy Spirit into a world blind to His existence.
As we become more enlighten by spiritual truth our natural behavior will change. The cause of this change in our hearts is not from fear of failing to keep laws, but it comes as a result of the love and security we find in our relationship with our Father in heaven. We become enveloped with an understanding and a philosophy that puts others before self. We begin to see evidence that we are all sisters and brothers equal in social status, but unique in so many wonderful ways that allows us to appreciate the diversity and beauty of every person we meet.
More important is our understanding and belief that as we allow God’s Holy Spirit to live through us we become a personal body for Christ. Our body, design by God can do some really miraculous things that can only be described as supernatural. Jesus was born without a human father and He injected a spiritual DNA into humankind. When we eat His flesh and drink His blood our conscience beholds the true reality of our being.
I encourage us to remain aware of our citizenship in the Kingdom of God. Not only are we yielding to the function as transport mechanism for Holy Spirit but we are yielding our members to touch, listen and see the same Spirit, wish is also resident inside those that are blind to the truth. As we respond to the Christ in others, even before they see it, we provide spiritual evidence.
It is impossible to see Jesus with material eyes in a homeless person, a presidential candidate, a supervisor, or co-worker much less our spouse and children. But as we yield to His will our spiritual senses begin to see all of mankind as daughters and sons of God. When we yield to Holy Spirit’s will we are released from the burden of having to provide proof, and we can rest in the work of Holy Spirit who lives in and through us.
1 Corinthians 2:12-14 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy[a] Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
EVidence LOCKER 