The Bible says "[y]ou 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 Cor. 3:3). Love letters are written to communicate the loving intentions of a lover to the one he loves. As Christians, we are living love letters that the Lord Jesus has sent into the world to spread His love.
Christians are Christ's ambassadors into the world. Before ascending into heaven, Jesus commissioned all of His followers, not just the eleven remaining disciples, to "go into all the world to preach the gospel to all creation." This is a task, a purpose that we as Christians should be giving all our lives into.
Here are some ways that you can be Christ's love letter to the world, as He intended you to be:
1) Preach the gospel to the world
Once I heard Reinhard Bonnke, an evangelist to Africa, say that "every street corner is a pulpit." In fact, that's how Paul and the other apostles initially spread the gospel in the book of Acts – they preached everywhere they went.
It doesn't matter if you only have one audience when you share the gospel. Philip was led to share it to an Ethiopian eunuch who was traveling alone (see Acts 8:26-40) but that evangelistic moment was so powerful that it was recorded in God's Holy Book and continues to inspire, instruct and empower Christians 2,000 years later. Don't overlook the impact that one conversation with a stranger can have.
2) Do good works
God has designed all of us with the capacity for good works (Ephesians 2:10). While we don't work hard to earn our salvation (Eph. 2:8-9), the Bible clearly states that God wants us to do good things.
Jesus Himself said that when we do good, we give people a reason to praise the Father. He said in Matthew 5:16, "let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."
However, Jesus also warns not to do good just for show. "[W]hen you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Matt. 6:3-4).
3) Disciple believers
We wouldn't have Christianity now if it stopped with the early church. This only happened because those who loved Christ enough to obey His command to spread the gospel and disciple people did so with so much perseverance.
Jesus had the twelve. The twelve kept spreading the gospel to people in many places. Barnabas believed that Jesus saved Paul, who later taught Timothy, Titus, and many others. All of them loved people enough to share the love of God to them, and so the story of God's love has continued to multiply and spread to many hearts and lives down through the ages. You can be a part of this exciting story through your own life, every day.
