Continued revelation.....

As time passed, my revelation of Grace grew. God softened my heart and gave me a desire to begin to work things out with my husband. We reunited after many weeks apart! Things were not fully restored, but heading in that direction. We were both beginning to understand God's love and acceptance for us, which helped us to want to stop judging each other and start loving each other. However, we had years of bad patterns and negativity built that needed to be stripped away! God in his awesome kindness continued to use friend's of ours to help open our eyes by sharing with us some messages that had truly met them and helped to bring them out of darkness into the light.( I say this not in the sense that we/they didn't understand that we/they were saved, we knew we were saved, we just didn't understand the full measure of the Gospel and of Grace.) So, we had been given cd's of numerous messages by Rob Rufus, preaching grace and unveiling the full glory of the Gospel and the gift of righteousness by faith. One morning I had some time to myself and I put on a message called Grace vs. Law. I honestly wasn't sure about it and was very curious, but went on a high raving recommendation from our friends because we trusted them. (as they were some of the few people who genuinely helped us in our darkest hours.) So, on went the message, in my cozy country living room that glorious summer day! I had no idea I was about to be transformed forever! As I sat and listened to this message, my spirit lifted as high as a kite, my stomach filled with happy butterflies and I was beaming! I began to understand the whole truth of the Gospel. I began to see, God wasn't looking at my performance or concerned with my external behavior and that he has given me the gift of righteousness! Halfway through the message I was so excited I couldn't take it! I got up and called my friend, and exuberantly gushed all over her my thanks for sharing this with me! This truly was a revelation from God! Needless to say, I did finish the message that day. I never asked Keith to listen to it, but shared my enthusiasm and he joined me the following day as I listened to it again! He too, was quite blown away! We finally came to the realization that all these years we had been under the law, or legalistic teaching and it was crushing us both individually and together as a couple! Anyway, this was THE most inspirational, truly eye-opening message either of us had ever heard! (Now don't misunderstand, I am not elevating the preacher or "his" message, but what was brought out from the Scripture.) I learned more about the Gospel, more from the Bible and from church history in this one message, than I did in all the years at my old church! This is honestly true! (sad, but true!) Anyway, I suppose it impacted me so much to understand we died to the law and what the law was for, as well as knowing what the law is not for. Understanding what the law is for; to condemn you, to crush you, to stir up sin in you, and provoke more sin in you, to give an awareness of wrath over your life, a constant feeling of unworthiness, it opposes you, curses you with sickness, death, disease, poverty and defeat and makes you aware you are a transgressor!!! It shows you how insane it is to establish your own righteousness by the keeping of laws, rules, standards, morals, models and so forth!!
This was what we were living in! And we were dying, we experienced the whole list I just mentioned above! So, to finally understand this, I have to say, I was so thrilled and so ready to receive this whole teaching, not just with my head but my heart! We began to truly be able, only by inspiration from the Holy Spirit, to move forward and out of and away from our huge conflict! We didn't even have to try to figure it all out or have months of councilling, the darkness just began to lift and we began, slowly, to see each other with eyes of grace and stop judging each other!!! Hallelujah, the Gospel really is Good News and really does have power to change lives. Whereas before we sat with pastors and others who couldn't offer us any advice that would transform our lives - we didn't need good advice or council or methods, why on earth did no one get that?!?!
Praise be to God, he has always had his hand on our life, he has faithfully pursued us and kept our lives from falling completely apart. And not only that he has given us victory, and still is! We are regularly basking in His Awesome Grace, The Gospel, Truly is Good News............