As a college professor, I often get asked to write letters of recommendations. Whether for graduate school or a professional opportunity, students want me to help provide verification of their qualifications for a particular opportunity. Because the student is presumably more informed about what the recipient of the reference letter needs to know, I often ask them to let me know what they want to make sure I include in the letter. Most, nearly all of the time, they respond with some version of “I don’t really know” leaving me to guess what qualities the letter needs to convey.
In 2 Corinthians 3 we learn that along with professional letters of recommendations, Christians have spiritual letters of recommendations written about them. These letters, however, aren’t written by pen or by keyboard, they are the result of our relationships with other people. As Paul writes to the church in Corinth,
“You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all (2 Corinthians 3:2).
Did you catch that? Those we minister to our those that will “recommend” us – because they will be the ones that attest to the fruitfulness of our ministry. Not by putting pen to paper, but in how they live their lives.
It’s an amazing thing to ponder. So often we think of our “testimony” as being something we say, but this demonstrates that our testimony of sanctification is about what we do – how we serve God by serving others, and how we love God by loving others. It puts a new perspective on our service, the things that we do for other people, as it will be through our service that people will see our commitment to Christ.
And we must ask ourselves, “What type of letter are we writing?”
Now it’s your turn…how does it change our relationships when we realize that through them our spiritual letter of recommendation is being written?