If Your Life Was A Letter How Would It Read?

Click Here to Listen to or Read the One Year Bible Lessons

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! 








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Acts 22 - Paul Sees the Light

Image
6  “About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me.   7  I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me,  ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’  8  “‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.  “  ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth,  whom you are persecuting,’  he replied.   9  My companions saw the light,  but they did not understand the voice  of him who was speaking to me.  10  “‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked. “  ‘Get up,’  the Lord said,  ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do. This is the famous story of the apostle Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.  Paul was going there to persecute Jewish Christians and throw them into prison and he meets Jesus is a spectacular way.  Not only is he blinded by a briliant light, but he hears the Lord's voice audibly.  And the Lord asks him, "Lord, Lord why are you persecuting me!"  Paul thought he was serving the Lord, but he was persecuting him b
Read more

2 Timothy 4 - Fight the Good Fight! Finish the Race!

Click Here to Read or Listen to 2 Timothy 4 4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. Paul gives a closing charge to Timothy. First of all, he is to preach the word. God's Word speaks to all situations and seasons. The Word of God will sometimes correct us. Our lives can get of out alignment with God's will as outlined in
Read more

Hebrews 6 - Have You Graduated From Elementary School of Faith Yet?

Click Here to Read or Listen to Hebrews 6 6 Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so. The author once again picks up with the theme of moving on to Christian maturity.  He teaches them to move on from the "elementary" teachings about Christ. What does he mean by that?  He gives clues by citing repentance, faith, cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, and teaching on the judgment and resurrection from the dead. We might call these the basics of the Christian faith. If you read through the Apostle's Creed, which our church confesses in our 8am service, it contains many of these core doctrines.  Click here to see the Apostle's Creed Written Around “When we consider the
Read more