DCLM Daily Manna 8 November 2026: Our Lasting Legacy
KEY VERSE: “Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men” (2 Corinthians 3:2).
TEXT: 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
Are we starting to commend ourselves again? Or we do not, like some [false teachers], need written credentials or letters of recommendation to you or from you, [do we]?
2 [No] you yourselves are our letter of recommendation (our credentials), written in your hearts, to be known (perceived, recognized) and read by everybody.
3 You show and make obvious that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, not written with ink but with [the] Spirit of [the] living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4 Such is the reliance and confidence that we have through Christ toward and with reference to God.
5 Not that we are fit (qualified and sufficient in ability) of ourselves to form personal judgments or to claim or count anything as coming from us, but our power and ability and sufficiency are from God.
6 [It is He] Who has qualified us [making us to be fit and worthy and sufficient] as ministers and dispensers of a new covenant [of salvation through Christ], not [ministers] of the letter (of legally written code) but of the Spirit; for the code [of the Law] kills, but the [Holy] Spirit makes alive.
READ OTHER DCLM DAILY DEVOTIONAL HERE
Among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World compiled by the Greeks, only the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt has survived. Others—the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—have all been destroyed over the centuries. They failed the test of time because they were the works of natural man, himself a finite construction subject to decay.
Writing to the Corinthians, Apostle Paul, however, says it is the word of God planted in the heart that makes a difference for a man to have a durable legacy of commendation. He refers to his own ministry, which he, by the Grace of God, brought to bear on the Corinthians. Paul declares that the gospel worked out a permanent change in their lives through their faith. The church in Corinth became an indelible epistle written in their hearts, preserved by Christ in His Kingdom against destruction and decay. Like Paul’s apostleship, the Corinthians’ faith was not surviving on man’s sufficiency but on heaven’s.
It is not sheer human capability or feat that releases staying strength or life into our labour. It is the Spirit of God we allow into it through our submission to Him and His precepts. The depth of our faith in His Word is what will give our puny efforts power, life and rejuvenation. Thereafter, we are assured of being propelled by the Lord to erect sanctified works to His glory; works that cannot be wiped away by time, as it happened to the ancient wonders.
For the teachings of the Church and its work for Christ to outlive our age and last, we must function like Paul. Heaven wants us to disciple those who would be the epistle of Christ for their environment to read. They would not seek self-serving achievements for short-lived human commendation. Our converts must receive fundamental change that translates and transforms them for the renewal of their communities. This is the imperishable legacy we must thirst for.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY The Word in our hearts primes and propels us to triumph [unclear in scan] of faith.
THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR 1 Kings 15-16
DCLM Daily Manna 8 November 2026
