Encouragement

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I wrote a letter of encouragement,recently, to my Grandma in India who is in tremendous pain lying on her sick bed. It was a simple bible-saturated letter meant to lift her up that she might fix her eyes on Jesus, reminding her of the glorious suffering and crucifixion of Christ on the Cross. At the time of writing, little did I know that it would be read to a larger audience for edifying the body of Christ. The day Grandma read the letter, a prominent evangelical figure happened to visit her. After reading it for himself he acknowledged it and took the letter to be read to a larger crowd in the youth ministry of his Church. Most letters that I sent to my congregation were published in the Church's newsletter widely read by at least 1500 people (way beyond my expectations!).

When you know that your writing influence far exceeds your own intentions and awareness, ultimately, you know its not your intellectual prowess but a divine strategy under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit meant to testify the glorious risen Christ.

Crucial for our day and age is not letters or articles that are filled with Theological jargons or Pop-Theology; but Bible-saturated and Christ-exalting ones that convicts and edifies the universal body of Christ. Yes! His Grace is sufficient for everyone, sufficient enough not to make things flimsy and superficial; but deepen the writer and the reader making Him most valuable above all things.

Luther once said,"God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees, and flowers, and clouds, and stars." Nature bears the imprints of the mighty works of God revealing to us a glimpse of His splendor. Prophets ,inspired by God, wrote about the coming of the Messiah, finally, climaxing in the revelation of Jesus Christ. God glorified himself through the writings of the Prophets which was later used by Christ himself to vindicate and authenticate the fulfillment of the scriptures(Luke 4). Scripture is God-breathed written under the mighty influence of the Holy Spirit. God chose and used weak men to write scriptures and the most glorious thing that could ever be recorded in the entire history of mankind has always been: The "Word became flesh," summed up in the person and work of Christ.

The Book of Revelations begins with the words: "The revelation of Jesus Christ" (1:1).

In other words, it is about Jesus Christ like any other book in the Bible. When Christ revealed himself to the apostle John in the Island of Patmos , one of the first things he said was: "Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this" (Rev.1:9) " Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea" (v.11). He continues in (2: 1 )"To the angel of the church in Ephesus write." "And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write" (v.8) followed by verses 12, 18; 3:1,7,14.

God does not belittle writing and uses it to accomplish His eternal mandate even to this day. Therefore, when we prize Christ in our writing, God will be glorified through our writings.

The Prophets in the Old Testament, including Paul and the disciples in the new Testament, could not have known the far reaching effects their writings would have made. There is no way they could have known that their writings would be read 2000 years later by the universal body of Christ and the unsaved . The letters were meant for a specific season within a particular context, for edifying the body of Christ; to strengthen Churches in doctrine, purity, faith, perseverance, hope and love, and to bring glory and honor to Christ.

Yet, their divinely inspired writings continue to transform Churches and nations as it did in the days of Luther and Calvin in the 16th and 17th century. What the world needs is "a Luther" or "a Calvin" to speak to us afresh today that in all things Christ will be supremely exalted!

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