Living Letters

Living Letters

Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. 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. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

When U.S. ambassadors leave to serve in a foreign country, they take letters of recommendation and authority to act on their government’s behalf. Their words and actions can never be wholly theirs, for they don’t act in their own capacities. When they speak, they are messengers for their government. When they act, their deeds reflect on the country they represent.

We are Christ’s ambassadors and therefore his messengers. As today’s verses express, we are a letter written not with pen and ink but with the Spirit of the living God. Although the words by which we communicate are important, on a much deeper level it is the message of our everyday actions and lives that is most influential. We are the letter from God that people read. When we swerve to cut in front of another driver, give a bad report about another person, or act in an unloving way, we are misrepresenting the Lord. Our words and actions are to reflect God, who lives inside us, to people who may never open a Bible or enter a church. We are living sermons even when we don’t say a word, and we may be the only message from God people ever “read.”

Never forget that you are an ambassador for Christ and a messenger of hope; depend on him, for as Paul said, you can’t claim or count anything as coming from you, but your power and ability and sufficiency are from God (see 2 Corinthians 3:5). Ask his Spirit to empower you to deliver the Good News with your life and your words. —CHERI

Thank you, God, for the privilege of being your ambassador. Give me the power to live so that my life represents you well and the message conveyed to others will be one of love and hope. May my outstretched arms be yours to those I meet.

Christ has no hands but our hands

To do his work today;

He has no feet but our feet

To lead men in his way;

He has no tongue but our tongues

To tell men how he died;

He has no help but our help

to bring them to his side.

—ANNIE JOHNSON FLINT (1866–1932), AMERICAN POET AND HYMN WRITER