"I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the LORD Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.
For we have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother."
Philemon 1: 1-7
Could your pastor say what is written above about you?
Paul here is actually writing a letter on behalf of Onesimus a runaway slave that was owned by Philemon. Paul had found him in Rome and converted him sending him back asking Philemon to credit anything that Onesimus owed him to his account.
We don’t know what Philemon did from biblical accounts but I have been told that Church history records bishop in the church at Ephesus by the name of Onesimus that was noted for his love and kindness. Many think this was the same person and that Philemon did release him.
The point is here could your pastor speak of your love and faith in Christ and how you share your faith and uplift other believers in the same way Paul did of Philemon.
Could your pastor trust you as Paul did to do the right thing when he sent someone who wronged you back to you?
In short is your faith visible to all, without you telling them, and do you truly forgive those who have done things against you? Do you truly have love in your life?
Take a look at 1 Corinthians 13 and see what love is.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith,
so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind: love does not envy, love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil,
does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-8a
Something to think about
Using 1 Corinthians 13 as the definition of love between you and God Do you Love?
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