Watch out for the Letter!!
The letter will kill you, Absolutly destroy you and The Love that He Who Is Love longs to share with you and through you. The letter will take away The Abundant Life, leave you broken, beaten and defeated and this is Exactly why most people leave the church and Never come back – Solution:
“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4Such confidence we have through Christ before God. 5Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” – 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
What are you a minister of – “the letter” or “the Spirit” and how does that affect your life?
Taking a look at vs. 4-6 two things really hit me.
Where is the confidence of a person who is under the law?
If my righteousness is in any way shape or form based on my doing, guess what, I would be confident not based on Him but based on me!
Wow that is a terrible idea if you know me at all. I suck when it comes to righteousness just ask anyone who knows me. My righteousness and the only righteousness that will endure is from only one source- yeah you guessed it Jesus!
As vs. 6 says the “letter of the law kills but the Spirit gives life”. So my second point or thing that really hit me is this, am I teaching about life and that more abundantly or death and more legalism?
Furthermore when we judge others for any reason- are we teaching letter or life? I just had a very well-meaning and I am sure sincere man tell me that anyone who commits certain “sins” is immediately thrown out of his church and not allowed back in. Why those and not others? Why no Grace? Where is the Spirit in that church?
Let us all get beyond the letter of the law and grow in the Spirit of Love! He came, ministered, was tortured, died and rose again to teach us what?
Care to go in depth in a study of being Spirit and Not letter? Click the link in the words below
