Brother John,
Sister Coleen said at the meeting tonight (while speaking about things regarding the true doctrine that we, and brother Coy, have learned), that, “Coy has told me these things before, but I had to hear it from God. I learned this straight from God!” Well, what brother Coy was telling her was from God too, but God had to enable her to take it in.
It made me think, and remember my own experiences. I believe what she said applies to every one of us, at one time or another.
How many times have we stood up and testified to a “new thing” that we have learned, and that we now understand, and that new thing turn out to be something that you have been preaching for years. I know I have done it, probably every time I tell about something new that I have learned 🙂 But it IS NEW – new to me, because until then I never really did understand it….even when I thought I did!
But what I am enjoying so much about this, is that God let me understand why it is this way.
We can hear something over and over, and understand the words, and repeat them… correctly, but still not truly know what we are saying. When we learn, really learn, doctrine or a portion of God’s truth that we otherwise were ignorant of, it becomes a part of us, and it is alive! When we really learn it, a door has been opened by Jesus, inside of us, and it goes inside and stays there forever, as long as we remain in the light. That truth becomes a living part of us when we really take it in. When it does that, we become IT…living examples of it. We change according to what it has brought into our soul! Until then, we don’t have it. Even if we can tell about it.
You tell us so many things… day after week after year, and little by little, a day here and a day there. Then, when that door opens up inside of us and what you have been saying is grafted in to us, it becomes us; better yet, we become it! It then becomes our TESTIMONY! We then testify to it, for it is what we truly know! It is our experience. It is now us!
You told us, in the past, that you could teach doctrine…not because you learned the words from someone else, as so many men do who seek such a worldly interpretation about God, but because it is your testimony! It is your EXPERIENCE! It became you; you became it when God opened you up and put that truth inside you. You became it, and you can speak of it just the same as I can testify to receiving the holy Ghost. We can speak to our experience, that is our real testimony! Our experience with Jesus is the only truth that we can know. And we can tell it with boldness!
That was what sister Coleen was testifying to. That is learning the truth. It is alive, consuming us as we ingest it. We haven’t learned it until we ARE it!
God is so amazing. Everything in Him is alive and does some thing in us. Nothing from God is just “there”. It all will accomplish something when taken in.
So sweet.
Thank you.
Good night 🙂
Jerry