Holding People in Your Heart!

Letter

Building One Another

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. I Thessalonians 5:11

Holding People in Your Heart!

Dear Friend

One of the fascinating things about the Apostle Paul is how clearly he demonstrates his interest in people!

For example, he holds the Philippians in his heart as he remembers them, prays for them with joy as he yearns for them.

Immediately we see a patterns to help us hold people in our own hearts:

Remember them – be aware of them.

Pray for them – with joy and expectation.

Yearn for them – love them with the love of Jesus.

The first step is to remember them. It’s easy to remember the people we see regularly, but given our busy lives, the expression, “out of sight out of mind,” is literally true!

To elevate your practice of “holding people in your heart”, make remembering them part of your daily routine, such as during your time of daily devotions or Quiet Time.

An easy approach I learned from Win and Charles Arn years ago is to use the mnemonic FRANC. Take a sheet of paper. Draw five columns. Fill them with names in your life in each category:

F – Friends

R – Relatives – family near and

A – Associates – those

N – Neighbors

C - Church

Then every day, hold them in your heart as you remember them, pray for them with joy as yearns for them with the love of Jesus.

Joy to you – Stan

Scripture from the ESV

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Show Notes

If the first step in holding people in your heart is remembering them, then work out a way to bring them to your mind, such as the pattern of FRANC
Make yourself a FRANC Sheet and keep it with your Bible and other devotional materials. Refer to it daily and pray for the people with joy!
Take a sheet of paper. Draw five columns. Fill them with names in your life in each category:
1. F – Friends
2. R – Relatives – family near and
3. A – Associates – those
4. N – Neighbors
5. C - Church

Photo by Erika Giraud on Unsplash