Q. How Can We Know These Things Before We Realize Them?

A. Faith leads to, realization; the experience of faith must be the consequence of faith itself.
In 1 John 5 you have the external witness of the Spirit, the water and the blood, and then " he that believeth hath the witness in himself, and just as we take food and eat it we find the result. In the clean animals (Lev. 11) one great thing is the chewing of the cud. In ruminating some portion of the food comes into service immediately; but some is still there, and must come up again, and upon reconsidering, more and more come out of it.
Verse 5. " They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit."
The great hindrance to souls is the want of deliverance (Rom. 7 is not a matter of peace, but of deliverance); indeed to have heard the divine call, as Abraham. Lot went with Abraham, but the difference is soon manifest; and the plain of Jordan (of death) is to Lot's eyes the garden of the Lord; that justifies him in the choice of it; he forgets that in a fallen world there is no garden of the Lord, and it is really like the land of Egypt.
Just so far as faith is faith it works, so in 1 John • he appeals to what faith has wrought in them. This is never the way to settle souls, but it tests the reality of those who profess to be settled. In some cases it may be good to raise doubt as long as it can be raised. A delivered soul is the only one who can make progress.
Enjoying our own things in Christ makes us free; happy, holy, and strong. If we are not in the enjoyment of them we are as weak as water, not but one with a strong will may go on in a self-chosen path, but it is misery. Our first thing then is to enjoy Christ.