daily java

Daily Java:

I appeal to you to show kindness to my child, Onesimus. I became his father in the faith while here in prison. Onesimus hasn’t been of much use to you in the past, but now he is very useful to both of us. I am sending him back to you, and with him comes my own heart. (Philemon 10-12)

A slave stole some of his master’s things and then ran away. Then he found Jesus and knew he had to do what he could to make up for it. But in the meantime, he had also found the apostle Paul. Paul had made him a child of God, but more than this. God had changed him. He was now what his name meant in Greek: Useful.

He had been useless, now he was useful.

He had probably been a lousy worker, always griping, sullen, hiding from the people he was supposed to be working for. He had probably stolen other things, but one day he saw a chance to make a big score and with it, gain his freedom.

The man he worked for was a good man and kind. But it didn’t make any difference. Onesimus wanted want was “his” and was willing to steal to get it.

But contact with the apostle Paul changed him. He saw how he could be better, how he could serve God. However, he had to not only change his heart, he had to change his relationship with his old boss.

Paul wanted him for an assistant in his ministry, but he also knew things had to be made better between the two. So he sent him back.

We don’t know what happened, if Onesimus came back or if Philemon, his old master, had him put in jail or what.

But it is absolutely true that, if you can change what you have done, you need to. If you have stolen, and you can repay, you need to do so.

Sometimes, the amount of things you have done and the distance involved make it impossible to repay. There was a classmate of mine in the seminary I attended that was told by our teacher, who was a rather black and white man theologically – no room for any variance, that he had to repay anything he had stolen. The man said it would be almost impossible.

The teacher asked, well, how much money are we looking at here. The young man replied, hundreds of thousands of dollars. As it turned out, in his former life, he had stolen to feed a drug habit. And there was no way he could repay it all back. If he could even have found out who he had stolen from, he would have worked the rest of his life and more just to repay. He could not.

But he had changed and would steal no longer.

Some things you cannot repay. But you can quit doing what you were doing and become useful for Christ.

Then and only then he can use you.