Priority Communications

With social media and connection apps like Facetime and Whatsapp no matter where in the world we are we can stay in touch with most people.

That wasn’t the case when I first moved overseas to Taiwan in 1979.  Telephone calls to landlines were saved for special occasions like birthdays and Christmas and they didn’t last very long because they cost a lot of money. 

There was no email.  It was all snail mail - all pen and ink or typewriting so you thought about what you wanted to say, what you thought they wanted to hear from you and what was important.  And believe me, when you got those letters in the mail, they were precious. Every word mattered. You read and reread them and stored them in a safe place.

I was thinking about that when I read some words in the Bible that  a pastor wrote to his friends in a church when he was separated from them he wanted to remind them of important matters.  Here they are:

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

Paul wrote these letters to people he clearly cared for.  He encouraged them to pass along the great love he and the other leaders had for them because, as Jesus taught us, loving God and loving one another are the two most important things we can focus on each day. 

And then we always want our loved ones to be well and to do well and that’s what Pastor Paul writes about next.  He’s longing that his friends would find strength from God so they would rise above temptations and persecution they faced on a regular basis.

How do you bless your loved ones?  What are you praying for them?  Does it sound anything like the priorities Paul was praying about and encouraging these folks to live into? Are we living into these words in our own lives?  These are important priorities to give ourselves to today.

And so we pray: Lord, would you work in so our love increases and overflows for each other and for everyone else just as You have loved us. 

By the power of Your Spirit, please strengthen our hearts so we live blameless – we can’t hardly believe we could hope for that but it is the cry of our heart.  Help us to live blameless and holy in Your presence, God.  We want to be able to stand before You at the end of time and know that we have honoured Your longing for us. 

We can only work with today though – that’s the time frame that’s before us, but we want to give ourselves to You and to honouring Your purposes in our words and actions and all our relationships today. Amen

God’s “air mail message” to us today - Be loved. Be strong.  Love and strengthen others so together we live blameless. That’s enough of an agenda for me to give myself to today.  How about you?