John Thomas is the preacher at the South Gate church in Columbia, Tennessee, and he was diagnosed with the Coronavirus earlier this month. He had just come back from Greece where he was visiting missionaries. Because of this change in his life, he decided to start some vlogs on Facebook, and some have been posted to YouTube as well. He thought that this would be a good use of the time that he had in his basement away from his family, and he titled those vlogs as “Blessings from the Basement.” There have been over 4,000 people who have watched his vlogs and have been encouraged by them.
The story of John Thomas and his vlogs reminds me of Philippians 2:12-18 where Paul is in prison but still wants to encourage the people in Philippi to continue to “work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.” When we look at Paul in prison and the people that he would write to, we can see how someone who cannot have direct contact with people can still encourage and uplift the people that he cares about.
Paul begins by reminding them that God is doing work in their lives and is finding pleasure in them because of their faith. Because God is working in their lives, they are to do everything without complaint or argument so that God is the one who is seen to the people. It would be easy for us to complain about boredom, lack of socializing, or any other number of things. The thing that God would have us do though is to be a light in a dark world. Paul then uses himself as an example of how they should be glad even though he is going through distress.
Today it would be easy to neglect God and do something that maybe you don’t normally do, but we need to remember that God is still here working with us and for us. Our job is to continue to remember him and to continue to learn from what God would have us do. So a question that we should explore is what can I do this week to bring the light of God to someone’s life? Is there someone that you think could use a call? Is there someone who you haven’t spoken to in a while that you would like to encourage? Remember that it is important for us to hold fast to the word of life so that when we see Christ, we can be proud much like Paul expressed in verse 16.
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