You Are God’s Love Letter

Today’s passage is Acts 23:23-35.  Let’s go!

Acts 23:23-35 (NIV)
²³  Then he called two of his centurions and ordered them, “Get ready a detachment of two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to go to Caesarea at nine tonight.
²⁴  Provide mounts for Paul so that he may be taken safely to Governor Felix.”
²⁵  He wrote a letter as follows:
²⁶  Claudius Lysias, To His Excellency, Governor Felix: Greetings.
²⁷  This man was seized by the Jews and they were about to kill him, but I came with my troops and rescued him, for I had learned that he is a Roman citizen.
²⁸  I wanted to know why they were accusing him, so I brought him to their Sanhedrin.
²⁹  I found that the accusation had to do with questions about their law, but there was no charge against him that deserved death or imprisonment.
³⁰  When I was informed of a plot to be carried out against the man, I sent him to you at once. I also ordered his accusers to present to you their case against him.
³¹  So the soldiers, carrying out their orders, took Paul with them during the night and brought him as far as Antipatris.
³²  The next day they let the cavalry go on with him, while they returned to the barracks.
³³  When the cavalry arrived in Caesarea, they delivered the letter to the governor and handed Paul over to him.
³⁴  The governor read the letter and asked what province he was from. Learning that he was from Cilicia,
³⁵  he said, “I will hear your case when your accusers get here.” Then he ordered that Paul be kept under guard in Herod’s palace.

On verses 23-35:  Claudius Lysius is the name of the Roman commander was has been in custody of Paul.  With a huge detachment of soldiers, horsemen and spearmen to protect Paul and a formal letter explaining the situation, the Roman commander Lysius sends Paul to Felix, the governor of Judea, located in Caesarea, so that Paul can be tried in court there.  Governor Felix reads Lysius’ letter and decides that since Paul is from Cilicia, which was within Felix’s jurisdiction, Felix would hear Paul’s case.

Just as commander Lysius sent a letter to governor Felix to introduce Paul to him, so God sends us like a letter to the people around us to introduce Jesus to them. 

As Paul himself would say about his church in Corinth, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 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.” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3)

Because you may be the closest thing to a Bible that some of your friends ever read, may your life read like a love letter from God to the people around you. 

It reminds me of a song I wrote a while back called “I Respond”.  The lyrics go like this:

I Respond
© J.B. Lim

I see a vision bigger than the way I’ve been living
I hear Your heartbeat beating out of love for the world
I see a people, people who desperately need You
So let me be, Lord, an instrument to make You known

I see a picture painted in the pages of Your Word