Paul's Ministry ManualSample

  

What Record Are You Leaving?

Have you ever looked yourself up on the internet? For some people that can be embarrassing, and for others it can be encouraging. It depends on what kind of record you have left. The internet is the new diary of our lives. 

Paul’s true apostleship, and therefore his authority, was being questioned in the Church at Corinth. He addresses this in 2 Cor. 3:1-5. He asks, “Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf?" (v. 1) And his answer is “Surely not!” He was no unknown coming to minister among the Corinthians. They knew him. He had brought the gospel to them. He had founded their church and nurtured them in the faith. So he writes, “The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you” (v. 2).

If any of those in the church at Corinth wanted to know the nature of his work, they could see it in their own lives. He writes, “Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you.”  They may have faltered and questioned the Apostle himself, but their own lives were the result of his ministry. 

When you look back on your life, what record have you left on people's hearts? When they think of you, what comes to their minds? Are there warm feelings of the grace that has flowed into them through you? Are their eyes pointed in the direction of Christ as a result of your influence? Has your conduct toward them left an “aroma of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:14)? If this is so, praise God. If not, are there hurts or injuries you need to go back and repair? And will you covenant with God to do that with his help?

We sometimes sing these words:

O may all who come behind us find us faithful;

may the fire of our devotion light their way.

May the footprints that we leave lead them to believe,

and the lives we live inspire them to obey.

O may all who come behind us find us faithful.

What about those who are here now? Do they find us faithful? Is the mark we are leaving on them a mark worthy of the Savior? And if we are now writing the diary of our lives in the lives of others, what will people read?

Prayer: Lord, let me write a story of helping and building. Let me follow in the train of the faithful. May those who are touched by my life be better for it. May they be more Christlike. Let my influence have an upward effect.