If it is the Lord’s will, I hope that I will be able to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be encouraged by news about you. He is the only one who shares my feelings and who really cares about you. Everyone else is concerned only with his own affairs, not with the cause of Jesus Christ. And you yourselves know how he has proved his worth, how he and I, like a son and his father, have worked together for the sake of the gospel. So I hope to send him to you as soon as I know how things are going to turn out for me. And I trust in the Lord that I myself will be able to come to you soon.

I have thought it necessary to send to you our brother Epaphroditus, who has worked and fought by my side and who has served as your messenger in helping me. He is anxious to see you all and is very upset because you had heard that he was sick. Indeed he was sick and almost died. But God had pity on him, and not only on him but on me, too, and spared me an even greater sorrow. I am all the more eager, then, to send him to you, so that you will be glad again when you see him, and my own sorrow will disappear. Receive him, then, with joy, as a brother in the Lord. Show respect to all such people as he, because he risked his life and nearly died for the sake of the work of Christ, in order to give me the help that you yourselves could not give.

Philippians 2:19-30

In a world dominated by put-downs,

resolve to master the art of building others up

by what you say to them and about them.

Our day’s work is not done until we build up someone.

Our Daily Bread – March 12, 2003