Pastor John,
I was thinking this morning about how we can know that someone is wrong about Jesus (because of what He has revealed to us—only), but we love them, really love them, and not a bit less for their thoughts—and maybe have more compassion for them than we would, because they need the same help we received.
Yet people can believe we are wrong, and they despise us for it. Even if they once loved us and know how we conduct ourselves.
What a difference there is in the Spirit that Jesus gives versus other spirits that people take in and call God.
One of the things that gave me such confidence in the truth, in the beginning, is that it makes the people who are in it the most willing of people to be wrong and to change.
The truth makes you go lower as you go ahead; it doesn’t puff you up. And you soon stop trying to defend it, and begin walking in the knowledge that in God’s mercy, it is defending you from a world full of people that might otherwise do you harm.
I think it is a good sign when your heart is looking for the next thing that can be fixed or changed inside—looking for the next thought to abandon to trade for Jesus’s thoughts. I don’t think you can get too far off track if you feel that way.
It sure has been sweet the last two times we got together to read.
Jerry D.