How God Taught Me To Love via Keller & The Holy Spirit

I'm pullin into my parking spot in my apartment.  I have roughly 35 mins to do bout 40 mins worth of stuff before my doctors appointment & then I see 'em.  Two white, late teens, sportin a white shirt, black pants, tie & a name badge.  I was hopin that they were far enough away to not get to me in time, but I hear, "How are you doin today?"

(aside) Mormons make my blood boil.  Its that feeling you get when you see a rat run across your floor.  How dare you come on my turf!  I just really, really hate how they claim the Jesus I claim, yet that Jesus looks really different than the one you find in the scriptures.  All that to say, I basically come just short of hating Mormons in my worst & in my best, barely loving them.  (Definitely not an attitude that "the Jesus I claim" would have)

I say "Fine", very curtly.  Head down, plowin ahead, ready to get stuff done.  But then, I remembered a sermon i was literally just listening to in the car.  It was a sermon bout social justice from Tim Keller.  He brought up the story of the good Samaritan that Jesus tells the lawyer.  Then the Holy Spirit piped in & was like who the hell are you?  What did you do to become a child of God?  How long did you hang on the Cross?  Exactly how did you accomplish salvation for yourself?  Oh, thats right, you didn't do that, Jesus did! Did Jesus do that because you're so great?  Don't be stupid! Actually, Jesus did that for you when you were an enemy to Him, practicing & advocating the things that make His blood boil.  I was like, my bad.  I'll just let you stay in charge of salvation & judging the world & I'll obey you, through the power of your Spirit by loving my neighbor.  It was pretty cool to see God do all that in me, it was like he took me through a 40 min sermon in 2 seconds.

So I changed my tune, and said "hey guys, why don't we go into the a/c & get ya cold drink & chat."  We chatted for bout an hour, talked bout Jesus & life & they were on their way.

Not really all that grand of a gesture, but my heart sure had changed.  After they left I thanked God for working that change in me.  I thanked God for redeeming me & saving me & for the fact that He is so crazy sovereign & powerful that I cannot add or take away from his work.

Life can be really fun when the Gospel sinks in at real time speed!