People Matter (Faith Proved by Fact of Feelings #2)

In my devotions this morning I was struck by these words from 1 Corinthians 3:

The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you.  Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.

Then I read this from EM Bounds, "The trend of the day has the tendency to loose sight of the individual, or to sink the individual in the plan or organization.  God's plan, however, is to make much of his people, far more of them than anything else.  People are God's method.  The church is looking for better methods, God is looking for better people."  (Power Through Prayer)

I am a plan guy, a build the organization guy, a strategic planning "Good to Great" guy.  That is not all bad, but it leads to a lot of unneeded stress and unmet expectations and is not the center.  To Paul, people are the center, and that is all to do with how we feel and treat others.  Paul was not into proofs and building organizations as much as was into changed lives.  That is the standard he lived by - "Is God using me to impact those I see and know and touch?"  That is what mattered to him.

So we go back to how we prove the gospel from my last post, by facts or feelings?  Paul argued strongly, he knew his Old Testament practically by heart.  God's word and proving truth mattered in every synagogue he visited.  But the proof to him that it was working, that it was worth it - changed hearts and transformed people.  People around us know that is true as well and they look to our feelings to see if we believe what we say we do.