So…when’s the last time you wrote a letter? You know the pen on paper kind with real words formed into whole sentences?
This morning I walked the short distance to our mailbox, and placed inside two envelopes. Tucked in each was a sympathy card that would be opened by grieving friends.
Afterwards, I sat down at my desk, lifted the lid on my computer and clicked on the email icon. A blue image of an envelope took shape on my screen. Its flap opened and my inbox of email appeared, waiting to be read.
And how fitting that today, when I opened the pages of my Bible, I found a letter written by Paul addressed to members of the body of Christ in Corinth. The printed words, written many years ago on papyrus, is also a letter for me.
The letter to the Corinthian church was personal and raw. Some questioned his call to ministry. Some looked for written authentication, but Paul directed his accusers instead to the testimony of a changed life and godly character.
“You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.” (2 Corinthians 3:2 ESV)
Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Paul wrote from a wounded heart, hurt by their doubt and challenge of his authority. To some, Paul’s difficult experiences and sufferings invited unmerited criticism instead of proof of Christ’s steadfast presence in all situations.
Long before Paul’s letter, God inscribed His words on tablets of stone, a different sort of written letter, for His chosen people to read. The finger of God seared sacred laws for righteous living into the hard surface.
Even though those laws extended grace and desire for fellowship, they became burdensome to God’s people. The commandments reached out to claim a nation loved and set apart by Him. But, the recipients found the laws difficult to follow, impossible to keep. Their hearts were hard like stone, as are ours today without the Holy Spirit’s claim on our lives. For He didn’t came to reform, but to transform.
“And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:3 ESV)
Perhaps, as Paul wrote his letter while inside prison walls, faces sifted through his mind. He must have pictured individuals radically transformed. Friends, disciples, and willing listeners with soft hearts inscribed upon, claimed as Jesus’ own.
But, perhaps other faces filtered through his memory too. For there will always be those with hearts of stone who reject Christ or turn away from Him. He would have remembered them with sadness.
There are names written on my heart, and I’m sure there are messages written on the epistle of your hearts too. I remember with deep affection people who have ministered to me, and I to them. Together we form parts of the body of Christ, His Church. Some here, some across waters. And those names and faces, remind me of the holy calling we have.
It is slightly terrifying and terribly precious this calling Jesus has entrusted to us.
Paul’s letter reminds me that a heart that follows Christ is readable by the life lived. The Corinthians were Paul’s resume. Paul directs the naysayers to look at how the Holy Spirit has used him not to represent himself, but Christ. He reminds them of changed lives, like his own, snatched from darkness to glorious light.
It makes me wonder what people read on my heart by the letter of my life.
This letter of my life, written upon by the grace of Jesus, continues to unfold. Its writing happens on good days and bad, with ink of sorrow and joy. And sometimes, it is the only letter others read.
God continues to write His story, at times foggy, even invisible to our eyes with bits and pieces not yet understandable. And so, we persist in the truth written from God to us in His Word.
“Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.” (2 Corinthians 3:4b-5a ESV)
This is my morning’s letter opened from the Bible. It’s produced a sweet picture-show of people filtered through my memory, people that have left imprints by the letter of Christ on their hearts. And it reminds me that only God is sufficient.
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