Phil on ... Living Letters. 

“Living Letters”
 
It is reasonable to assume that I wasn’t properly “in the zone” spiritually during this particular service in February, when I struggled to erase an image from my mind as our preacher announced his theme for the day.
However, I did ultimately manage to compose myself and ended up being both impressed and challenged by what I heard.
We all make use of the written word to promote ourselves. We can think of the CVs we write to impress potential employees. Also, we can ask others to write a reference letter or post endorsements of ourselves on “LinkedIn”. However, we were reminded during the sermon that writing can be misleading. Our preacher cited an instance where a reference included the following passage: “You will be fortunate if you get Mr/ Mrs X to work for you”. Now, think about this statement for a moment - Is that a positive statement suggesting that the person is in great demand and, should s/he accept your offer of work, then you will be delighted with how they perform … or does it mean the person is lazy and you’ll be fortunate to get any work out of them?
The truth is that words (whether stated or written; whether delivered by you or by someone who knows you) can be unreliable. However, our behaviour is something that is dictated by what we truly believe in; by what is written in our hearts. That is what is meant when Paul encouraged us to be “living letters” for God. Yes, we might be able to act in what we deem to be the right way for a short time, but longer term our behaviour tends to reflect the truth in our hearts. This of course is a tremendous challenge, but we can all be encouraged that regular praying, fellowship and reading the bible should help us to better reflect the glory of God through our day-to-day actions. The benefit of being “living letters” is that it is likely to make people ask about what motivates the way we act … and that is a great opportunity to talk about Jesus.