In my quiet time with the Word this morning I read this:
Eph 1:15
"For this reason, a because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers"
I'm no Bible scholar but I play one on T.V…. I mean I live next to a lot of them, and I've learned a few things. I've learned that Paul's letters often start with greetings and salutations, and ends with farewell comments. Somewhere in the middle is the punch and the meat.
With this knowledge, skimming over the greeting is something that happens often for me. In my head I think 'Paul sends his best, haven't seen you in a while, nice stuff said… aha, here's the meat of the letter!'.
But today, the salutation got me.
"I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers."
When I read this I TOTALLY got it. I've lived it, I understood it in a way more than in my head, but in an experiential, in my heart way. Paul, like us, was bound to these people through a ministry they both had a passion for. He cared for them, and they cared for him. They demonstrated their faith to him.
The people who support us in our ministry have demonstrated their love, their support and their faith in God. They have decided to give sacrificially so that we could live overseas and do ministry. That bonds people tightly, tighter than you can imagine, because I couldn't imagine it until it happened for the first time years ago.
As a result of that, we (even though we are remote) are intimately concerned with those people who care for us, pray for us, write checks to us, encourage us, cry with us, email us, send us boxes, help us on furlough, haul trash for us, lend sofas to us, etc! And whenever we go to pray, these people, YOU, are on our hearts and minds all the time.
When you go through trials we like to know so we can pray for you. There is a bond there, and we are so very thankful for it, and for you, and we do not cease to give thanks for you when we pray.
