Have You Ever Thought of Yourself as a Letter?

Have you ever thought of yourself as a Letter?
                        June 2020
Have you ever thought of yourself as a letter?
Did you know that people are reading you, everyday?
And we’re not talking about “reading your mail,” as some like to refer to regarding your emotional status. We’re talking about how you show you are a letter from Christ.
In 2 Corinthians Paul was dealing with problems that had crept up in the church. Some false teachers were showing up carrying forged letters of recommendation to try to prove authenticity. How marvelous that Paul simply stated he needed no such letter, for the very lives of the people of the church was his letter!
“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” 2 Cor. 3:2,3
Paul knew, what we refer to as the Old Testament, well. He may have been thinking of the words from Ezekiel 36:26 where the Lord promised “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
God gives us new hearts to follow Him and puts His very own Spirit within us to be able to accomplish this. You are known and read by people I may never even meet. Each one of us has a circle of family, friends, neighbors and acquaintances that may be the only contact they will ever have with someone who is a true follower of Christ.
So what do they see when they read you? What type of letter are you?
For some of us, we might be too long of a letter. For others, perhaps too brief.
Let’s try something new and approach each encounter as if we are truly representing Christ.
Let’s eliminate going on about ourselves. Let’s not be terse or negative or complaining.
Let’s genuinely engage with each reader as if there was no one else around, and nothing else on our minds at the moment. That’s also called being fully present.
Let’s ask them how they are doing, and be willing to listen to the answer. Without any agenda. Just listen. It’s been a very difficult time for most everyone over the last several months.
So let’s give them something good to read.
And ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. After all… He’s the best author out there!