March 14th 2009

“A Letter of Commendation”

2 Corinthians 3:3 “: For as much as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God: not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”

 As Christians we are God’s letters of commendation to the world. We should be commending the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to all those around us. People may not the read your Bible, but they will read you. A true Christian has the Spirit of God abiding in him (Romans 8:9). God is using the circumstances of your life, His Word, and His Spirit to authenticate His letter to the world with a message that Jesus saved you.  We can learn how God is doing this by understanding the tools necessary to form a letter.  A pen is needed to write a letter. The apostles were the instruments God used to write the New Testament. They did not author the New Testament; they were just the pens God used to do His writing. Ink is necessary to write, without ink a pen is useless. We find that God used the apostles, and filled them with the ink of the Holy Ghost.  Just as II Corinthians 3:3 states, “Not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God:”. You can have pen and ink, but if you don’t have something to write on you won’t have a letter. The Lord is writing a letter of grace on our hearts.  An example of this is stated also in verse 3, “Not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”   If you want people to read Christ in your life, you will need to present your heart daily to God.  A letter is written to be received and read.  A letter should be legible. If you can’t read the letter, then it has no use. Sometimes, the Lord has to use an eraser in our lives because of sin.  Sin and grace don’t go together.  A letter should be logical.  A letter should have some order to it. You can expect the Lord to bring order to your life, Amen!  A letter is more apt to be read when it is personal.  When we start caring about those around us, God’s letter becomes more personal. The letter should reveal the writer.  Agatha Christie and Louis Lamoure have their own style, and so does the Lord Jesus Christ. When my wife and I first started dating we actually lived a few hundred miles apart. We had met in college, but in the summer we had to go home and it was awful.  I didn’t like being away from her.  I thought she might get around some old boy friend and forget about me. She didn’t, I got a letter from her shortly after I got home. Wow! It was great. She had sprayed her perfume on it and it smelled just like her. She would send these letters every week and I would show all my buddies. Actually, I would just let them smell the letters. They had her signature and her style. I was more than happy to read them. God will make it clear, who is doing the writing on your heart. When grace takes over, people will see Jesus in your life. What do you want people to read when they see you?          

Read: 2 Corinthians 3