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Gerry Gutierrez' Update
My wife "my mentor."
Mentoring.
Today it would have been 47 years since Ruthie said, “YES” to me.
Once upon a time I fell in love with a blue-eyed Petite girl that I could not keep friendship with unless it was built in the “pure truth.”
I felt the need to let her know about my past. At that moment it became magnified for the fear of losing her because of what I had been and had done in Life. Fearfully (not prayerfully at the time) I confessed my “youthful Indiscretions.”
To my amazement I did not see those beautiful eyes rolling backward in judgment nor did her forehead showing a frown of disappointment. Instead, I heard for the first time in my life the voice of Jesus in my Ruthie saying: “I knew your past but thank you for telling it to me. I wanted to hear it from your own lips.”
Wow! Double wow! It was hard for me to believe that the “Godliest Girl” I ever knew up to that time in my life did not hold my sins against me. Not that Ruthie did not have any other choices ...because in our town all the boys and their cousins had their eyes of Ruthie. For us boys in Peru Ruthie was “The equivalent of the Prom Queen.” Thank God no one dared to ask her for a dance but me.
While other girls held my past on my face ...only Ruthie was willing to accept me as if I did not have a past and she took the risk. Later she would say to our daughters, “I would walk to the ends of the world with this man.”
As Dog begets dog As love begets love As grace begets grace Faith and trust begets faith and trust.
Now after many years I am free to say; “I do not think I have truly loved any other woman or trusted and believed any other woman or am I able to love any other woman as I have loved Ruthie, the love of my life.”
As the tenth anniversary of Ruthie’s death approaches, I just thought it proper to honor women and Ruthie by saying thank you Ruthie for touching me as a “Leper” and representing well our gracious Jesus and the Holy Spirit in my life. Ruthie was my lady and she made me feel like a knight in shining armor.
I have preached thousands of sermons and by God’s grace received generous words of encouragement ...but the approval of my Ruthie counted the most and now the approval of my children and close friends are keeping me alive.
Bear with me my friends, because there is another side to this letter. Recently I have come to grips with my tendency to seek for approval which has kept me in bondage for many years.
No matter how much grace and generosity I dispense to my consumers of grace I find little reciprocity but the proverbial, “Good deeds do not go unpunished.” What is worse is what our Lord Jesus said in his Infallible “Law.” “Do not cast your pearls to the Pigs because they will trample upon them and they will turn around and tear you apart.”
Let me make it clearer, if you dispense love and grace and trust generously, you are sharing your valuable pearls in confidence and childlikeness for the glory of God, plus for your own blessing and for the common good of the body.
If the fellowship of the saints is our inheritance on this earth; it was meant to be expended while we are on earth where the need for oneness is vital and is the only way to be known as disciples of Jesus. But oneness and fellowship on this earth is the closest thing to the impossible without the direct help of God and the willingness to pay the cost of fellowshipping.
If love is not present in a relationship; then God is not present either, because God is love and love is self-evident and irresistible.
Yes. “Familiarity breeds contempt.” As the saying goes: With the saints in heaven, that will be glory, but with the saints on earth, that is another story.”
When we get close to another person on earth, the best and the worse of us is exposed. Unless we remember to be gracious and generous with our fellow followers of Jesus ... we are not going anywhere.
It is easy to love at the distance and say sweet nothings by telephone to another person, but when sin visits the relationship we must never brand the forehead of that brother with that sin but rather take the opportunity to show grace. Sin in the life of the believer is there to be forgiven and is only a word of repentance away.
We must not forget that good little boys and good little girls do not need as much love and grace as bad little boys and bad little girls do. There is no merit if I love those who love me because for that I do not need power. Even the world loves those that love them. Love the enemy and pray for them and be ready to forgive at the first sign of repentance.
Our gospel is a Gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. My confession full of fear and shame about my past was to Ruthie a sign of repentance which Jesus in Ruthie did not fail to recognize. Thank you for believing in me sweetheart because your childlike faith led me to believe in Jesus and then Jesus led me to believe in Jesus in me as the hope of glory.
When I am silenced by the abrupt end to a phone call in rejection without reason, what comes to my mind is to read Isaiah 53. Jesus the man of sorrows was acquainted with grief. When you are interested in
mentoring you will find out that the interest shown will make you vulnerable. True love does not resent but seeks repentance as the grounds for forgiveness and goes on. The goal is agreement and oneness for the capacity to say “YES” to Jesus. The following equation is where the power to rest resides: F=PW2. This was a healed “Leper” on duty testifying about the Ruthie of Jesus.
Gerry Gutierrez.
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