Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us. 1 John 4:19 TPT
This week we learned about the impact three men impacted the world, because they were transformed by Jesus Christ. St. Patrick lived centuries before, John Wesley and Arthur Guiness. But it was his love for the Irish people lost in a pagan culture, that he studied to become a Bishop so he could go back to his captors and show them the love of Jesus. He went about the country side always in grave danger, to preach and teach the Gospel. Through him many in Ireland became Christians. By the time Wesley and Guiness were living Christianity was something that people practiced through ritual and on a Sunday. But through John Wesley preaching and teaching that everything in life comes through God because He loves us so much. Today’s verse was what he believed the entire Gospel was founded on, God loving us to save us so that we would not only love Him but one another. Along with Arthur Guiness, they took Christianity outside the church and changed entire communities, not only in Ireland but all over the world not only in their time, but still making an impact today.
I think St. Patrick summed it up in the beginning of his well known prayer, Christ in me. Not many people have heard this part, so I want to share it with you and hope itw truths make an impact on you as it did on me.
May the Strength of God pilot us.
May the Power of God preserve us.
May the Wisdom of God instruct us.
May the Hand of God protect us.
May the Way of God direct us.
May the Shield of God defend us.
May the Host of God guard us
Against the snares of the evil ones,
Against temptations of the world.
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