I am a learner. In all things, I try to find the lesson. I have this feeling of peace when I find the lesson in a situation. In that lesson everything makes sense to me and hope fills in me, like I have just been handed a map and I know where I am going from here.
I really look for the lesson when I listen to sermons. Some times it is very clear to me as soon as the pastor starts talking that I am struggling in an area and I need to listen. There are times I have to really pray for my heart to open because I feel like I am missing the lesson. There is another reaction I look for and that is guilt. I know that guilt is a sense that is used to convict me of something I am doing wrong.
Today's sermon was over love as we have been going through 1 Corinthians. We reached chapter 13.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV)
The sermon was taught, Love is a verb and not a noun. I have heard it said, love is the action part of faith. In any case, as I was listening I was trying to get the lesson, what I needed to learn. Then the part came about opening ourselves to let that change happen. Through Christ's love, we wouldn't be the same, everything would be changed.
A feeling came over me, almost prideful at first and I had to process it. A feeling that I wanted to shout "I did that, we did that!!" Nineteen months ago , I hit a bottom in my life, and I hit my knees. Twelve months ago, we hit that same bottom in our marriage and hit our knees again. We submitted it all to God just as we had done with our individual lives.
I realized I wasn't feeling guilt and it wasn't pride, it was gratitude. The lesson of Love wasn't taught to me in church today, but by life over the last year and half. I couldn't shout, "I did that, We did that" because honestly God did that! Today, God brought not just the lesson, but the blessing and feeling of Gratitude. Grateful that I , my husband, and our children know real and true love.
As a family, we practiced love. We took action, and it was God's faithful and unconditional love for us as sinners that turned our lives into more than we ever imagined. Christians since we were children, we no longer believe just what we have been told, we KNOW what we have been told. We have been saved by the Grace of God. We have been forever changed by His love from the inside out.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV)
A Grateful Believer in Jesus Christ
~Johnna
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