Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube of images and lyrics from the group Brush Arbor singing … Hello God … poignantly thanking God in prayer for all He does for us.
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Highlight Verse[s]: 3 John 1 [NLT] … 1 This letter is from John, the elder. … I am writing to Gaius, my dear friend, whom I love in the truth.
… John addresses a friend and writes a letter of help/encouragement.
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Highlight Passage [context]: 3 John [NLT]… USE THIS LINK …
… The apostle John writes a letter of encouragement to a brother in Christ.
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Reference Passage : … Ephesians 4:29b [NLT] … 29 … Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.
… God, thru Paul, exhorts Christians to use our words to help and build others up.
Reference Passage : … Philippians 2:3-4 [NLT] … 3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
… God, thru Paul, exhorts Christians to encourage and edify others.
Reference Passage : … Hebrews 10:24 [NLT] … 24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.
… We are challenged by God to do all we can to encourage others toward love and good works.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Dave Branon, uses the biblical example the Apostle John’s third letter to show how we Christians should use “bread and butter” letters/notes to encourage our fellow Christians. The ODB author wrote: What the apostle John did for his friend Gaius in the first century is a dying art in the twenty-first century. John wrote him a letter.
One writer for the New York Times, Catherine Field, said, “Letter-writing is among our most ancient of arts. Think of letters and the mind falls on Paul of Tarsus,” for example. And we can add the apostle John.
In his letter to Gaius, John included hopes for good health of body and soul, an encouraging word about Gaius’s faithfulness, and a note about his love for the church.
When I was young my mother helped me learn the value of writing “bread and butter” letters or notes, especially when we had visited someone or a friend or family member had done something nice for me (or our family). “Bread and butter” letters are thank you notes or letters of encouragement [see photo] to recognize what someone has done for us. And I’m afraid that we are losing this touch of civility in this digital age where we communicate impulsively thru social media or emails. We are losing the discipline of edifying others thru intentionally written notes or letters of encouragement.
But the Apostle Paul recognized the importance of a letter of encouragement when he wrote the very personal letter to a friend, Gaius, in the letter of Third John (see highlight passage). I firmly believe we should do more of that kind of “bread-n-butter” letters to provide grace and edification to our loved ones, especially those in the Body of Christ.
And I hope that readers here recognize that this is a great part of the motivation behind these “bread-n- butter” journal entries which I post daily, praying that what I write will not only help me grow in Christ but also be an encouragement to others. Perhaps you know of someone you could write today - even digitally - to encourage by sharing God’s love with them. Or maybe we should sit down and write a “bread-n-butter” letter to God, thanking Him for all that He does for us just as the group Brush Arbor does in the YouTube song linked above.
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Lord, Jesus, thank You for Your wondrous love letter to me which I read here daily in Your Holy word.
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My Prayer Today: Abba Father, … King Jesus, … Precious Spirit … I pray that others will be lifted up or encouraged by what I share here in writing daily. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled “Our Daily Bread,” distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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