If Your Life Was A Letter How Would It Read?

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2 Corinthians 3:1-5 "Are we beginning to praise ourselves again? Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not! 2 The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. 3 Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts. 4 We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. 5 It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God."

Epistles of commendation: Such letters were common and necessary in the early church. A false prophet or apostle could travel from city to city and easily say, “Paul sent me, so you should support me.” To help guard against problems like this, letters of recommendation were often sent with Christians as they traveled. - Guzik

A lot of times churches struggle with how to measure their effectiveness. Should it be giving? Membership? Church attendance? Volunteerism? Bible Study? Converts? Baptisms? 

Paul says that the evidence of his effectiveness in ministry was the Corinthians themselves. They were living letters revealing how Christ had used Paul to help change their lives. The content of the letter is Jesus himself, being written in the power of the Holy Spirit. Their lives are evidence of Jesus' work through Paul and his partners in ministry. 

I love this language of "Living Letters". We are all living letters in that same sense. Our lives, all that we do and say, are the content of our own living letters. As we live our lives as Jesus would if he were us, God is using us to continue his great story of salvation. 

This is the story that God started when he created the heavens and the earth and created us in His own image. It is the story of God sending His only Son, Jesus, to reconcile us back to Himself. It is the story of the Holy Spirit being poured out on Pentecost to all the apostles and believers gathered. It is the story of the Good News proclaimed in word and deed throughout human history for the last 2,000 years. 

One day that story will complete when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. Your life up to this point is your story, your living letter. But the real question is how is God using you as his living letter to bring the Good News to the world in which you live in. How is God using you to help your church reach more people for Christ. How is God using to show His love to the people he leads you to. 

Until the Lord calls us home, we are still a book still in the editing room yet to be published!  Our qualification to be part of this story does not come from any of our own qualities or abilities, but it comes from our great trust in God through Christ!