A PASSION TO SHARE THE GOSPEL
Are you aware of your unique qualities? One of the beauties of life is the uniqueness each of us brings to it. We are created by God with particular interests, abilities, and personalities. Our individuality is compounded by our history- including sins, failures and best of all our victories. We are all unique, but God calls us to the same task: to share His gospel. Our individual histories and experiences provide opportunities for us to bring the gospel into the lives of others. Like Paul taught that our sufferings for Christ gives us the experiences and opportunities to assist others who may be experiencing the same situations. So, will our past situations help us to share the gospel? Clearly, we need to ask for God’s wisdom in understanding His word and for the boldness to be ambassadors for Christ. God calls us out of our brokenness to share the gospel.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:11
Paul was indicating that the driving force behind his ministry- “the fear of the Lord”. Fear is a reverential awe for God, in light of His perfect holiness, righteousness, omniscience, and omnipotence, that leads a person to live in obedience to Him. Paul may have been speaking of his evangelistic ministry when he said, “We persuade men”, but it was more likely that he meant his effort to persuade the Corinthians of his sincerity. He had been criticized as being insincere. In response to this he had just revealed his constant awareness of God’s purpose and judgment. It was characteristic of Paul that he always us thought of God as seeing and knowing his every act.
The “fear of the Lord” is a prominent theme in the Old Testament. In Proverbs 1:7 it is said to be “the beginning of knowledge”. It is the basic attitude of awe and reverence that puts life in proper perspective. It is a kind of energy that purifies and empowers life. It was the fear or holy respect that Paul produced as exhibit A to prove his sincerity. His true character was known to God, and he felt that the Corinthians were spiritually sensitive enough to know it too.
Having a “fearful responsibility to the Lord” does not mean that believers become paralyzed. On the contrary, knowing God’s perfection and that He will judge everyone’s actions (5:10) should spur Christians to good deeds, to what pleases our God. The fear of the Lord also frees believers from all of life’s anxieties and worries. Knowing that God is “for us” (Romans 8:31), can keep believers unafraid of earthly powers- people, governments, or the forces of nature (Proverbs 3:25-26). God takes care of His own. The fear of God gives us uncommon courage in the face of life’s troubles.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:14-17
Verses 14-21 constitute one of the most important statements of the message of the gospel in all the New Testament. The controlling factor of his ministry, Paul emphasized, was the love of Christ as seem in His death. This was where he learned such dedication. By “the love of Christ controls us” Paul did not have in mind the impulse that sent him on his mission, but the restraint that kept him from seeking his own advantage and held him to the cross. The word for “control” has the sense pressure which confines and restricts. Such a total commitment to the good of others kept him from doing anything that would falsify the gospel or hinder Christian growth.
In verse 15, the motive of Paul’s ministry and his message are seen to be the same, for both flow from the cross. The death of Christ was the most important fact in Paul’s thinking. It affected all people by making possible the most radical change in their lives. Paul saw Christ as the second Adam (Romans 5:14-17), God’s new beginning in the creation of humanity. As such, He was the representative of the human race. What happened to Christ happens to all in some sense. Those who accept their unity with Him by faith take part in the death He died for them. Death to sin and resurrection to new life became the pattern of their lives. They no longer live to serve themselves. To live for self is sin. They live for Christ, and thus for others. This more than mere acceptance of an idea. It is participation in a new reality. So, Paul saw his task as notifying all persons of this new possibility and enlisting them to join in experiencing it. The word “all” is prominent in verses 14-15, and it indicates the breadth of Paul’s missionary goal.
Paul’s critics judged him – and themselves- “from a human point of view”, literally “by what he is in the flesh”. They valued persons on the basis of outward appearances and superficial signs. He now told the Corinthians that such evaluations were sub-Christians. The merely human point of view missed what God was doing. Since Paul’s conversion he did not see or evaluate people merely in terms of their human characteristics. He was concerned with their hearts and the work of the Spirit in their lives. Before conversion he saw Christ as the world saw Him, a troublesome teacher who died a shameful death. But now the emphasis was on the present. As a believer in Christ Paul now knew Him as the loving Savior who brings grace by His death and life by His resurrection. This statement does not mean that Paul had no interest in the earthly life of Jesus, simply that he now saw it from a new point of view. As a new person, he saw with new eyes. This led to his overwhelming concern for others.
Verse 17, with its great “therefore”, points back to what Paul said about Christ’s dying for all and all dying with Him (vv. 14-15). When Christ rose from the dead, the human race made a new start. All who are united with Him by faith are part of this new creation. They are “in Christ”, a term Paul used constantly throughout his letters to describe his relationship with Christ. It implied that those who exercise faith in Christ enter into a real, personal union with Him. Because they participate in His death to sin, the old things have passed away. This is true even though the old order hangs on for a while. The new creation will not be fully revealed until the new heaven and the new earth appear; but for those who are in Christ, the new order has already begun.
Everything that Paul and his companions did was to honor God. Not only did fear of God motivate them (5:11), but Christ’s love controlled their actions. The word for “controls” means “to hold fast”. In other words, the love of Christ was constraining them to certain courses of action. They knew that Jesus, out of His great love, had given up His life for their sakes. He had not acted out of His own self-interest, selfishly holding on to the glory of heaven that He already possessed (Philippians 2:6). Instead, Jesus had willingly “died for everyone”. Because Christ died for us, we also are dead to our old life. Like Paul, we should no longer live to please ourselves, we should spend our life pleasing Christ. Christians are brand-new people on the inside. The Holy Spirit gives them new life, and they are not the same anymore. While this newness is true individuality, Paul is saying much more. Not only are believers changed from within, but a whole new order of creative energy began with Christ. This is a new covenant, a new perspective, a new body, a new church. There is a new creation is being renewed. So, take notice, this is not a superficial change that will be quickly superseded by another novelty. This is an entirely new order of all creation under Christ’s authority. It requires a new way of looking at all people and all of creation.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:18-21
God brings us back to Himself (reconciles us) by blotting out our sins (Ephesians 2:13-18) and making us right with Him. When we trust in Christ we are no longer God’s enemies, or strangers or foreigners to Him. Because we have been reconciled to God, we have the privilege of encouraging others to do the same, and thus we are those who have the “task of reconciling people to Him”. As believers, we are Christ’s ambassadors sent with His message of reconciliation to the world. An ambassador of reconciliation has an important responsibility. We dare not take this responsibility lightly.
When we trust in Christ, we make an exchange. He takes our sin and makes us right with God. Our sin was laid on Christ at His crucifixion. His righteousness is given to us at our conversion. This is what Christians mean by Christ’s atonement for sin. In the world, bartering works only when two people exchange goods of relatively equal value. But God offers to trade His righteousness for our sin- something of immeasurable worth for something completely worthless. How grateful we should be for this kindness to us!!!
The word “reconcile” occurs three times in various forms in verses 18-19. It also is found in Roman 5:10-11. A similar word, also translated “reconcile”, is used in Ephesians 2:16 and Colossians 1:20. In all these cases the reference is to persons being reconciled to God. The emphasis is on something God does for humanity to overcome their hostility toward Him. Verse 19 restates the truth of verse 18 and adds the explanation, “not counting their trespasses against them”. Reconciliation implies that a state of enmity had existed due to sin. “Trespasses” means violations of God’s law or failures to do what is right. Such offenses God could have counted against mankind. Rather than do this, He overcame the enmity. Reconciliation requires effective treatment of the root cause of the hostility. This means that it is more than something that changes people’s attitudes. It is something that God accomplishes that draws God to man and man to God. Certainly, God loved us even before Christ died for us.
He did not have to have His mind changed in order to become our friend. But God demanded holiness of us and rejected our sin. Something had to be done to remove that sin so that God could receive us and we could receive the love God has for us. To accomplish this, Christ took upon Himself the judgment for our sin.
To reinforce His appeal, Paul restated the means and results of reconciliation in verse 21. It is made possible by Christ’s remedy for sin. “Made Him to be sin” means at least that God made Christ to bear the consequences of sin. But it is a daring phase that may mean much more. In some mysterious sense, the sinless Christ became identified with our sin so that we could become identified with His righteousness. As a result of this, those who are in Christ by faith “become the righteousness of God- that is, they receive the benefits of God’s righteousness. They (we) become righteous as they are transformed into the image of Christ. With that stated and believed, we should have the passion to share the gospel whenever and wherever we can.
LEARN TO BE A MORE POSITIVE PERSON AND HAVE MORE JOY
REVELATION: What are Christians Affirmations? They are a method to reprogram your mind to gain spiritual confidence in agreement with God's word. It is a marvelous way to gain an amazing insight into God's loving character. Affirmations that lift your life.
