“SO IF YOU consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. . . . I will repay it—to say nothing of your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ” (Philem. 17–20).
This was the summing up of the appeal. This is the beginning: “I, Paul, an ambassador and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus—I appeal to you for my child, Ones´imus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment. (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.) I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart” (Philem. 9–12). Here Paul puns—a comfort to punsters! “Onesimus” means “useful”—formerly “he was useless,” now “useful.”
Another note in passing: Paul calls himself an “ambassador”—the marginal reading, “an old man.” Are the old to be ambassadors? Yes, of gentleness, of good will, of thoughtfulness, of examples of being easy to get along with, of real service.
The real point is this: “Refresh my heart in Christ.” Paul was being refreshed from within—was refreshed by being in Christ—but he asked for this refreshment from without. Do we get refreshment from both directions—from within and from without? Yes. The within is primary and all-important, however. If we depend on refreshment from without, it will let us down again and again. We must not be self-contained, we must be Christ-contained. We must depend on Him for our primary refreshment. Then if anything comes from without it is all something thrown in, a plus. Glance at the refreshments from without, gaze at the refreshment in Christ. We must give refreshment to others if we are to keep it in Him.
O Blessed Redeemer, refresh me so blessedly that whether I get refreshment from without or not, I will be safe and satisfied. Then I can take joyously anything that comes from others. I do not depend on it. I thank Thee for this freedom. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall receive gratefully refreshments of spirit from without, knowing I have inexhaustible inner springs.
