2 Corinthians 5:11-21

2 Corinthians 5:11-21

New International Version (NIV)

¹¹ Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. ¹² We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. ¹³ If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ¹⁴ For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

My goal as a Christian is not to say "look at me", but to say look at what God has done for me.  My love for him should be the driving force behind showing Him to the world.

¹⁶ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

How quick I am to judge people by their appearance and then I need remind myself that God loves them and Jesus died for them too.

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

A pet peeve of mine is Christians saying, "I'm just a sinner saved by grace."   I realize they are attempting communicate they are no better than anyone else, but words and their meanings are important.  I WAS a sinners, but now I am a NEW CREATION. Yes I will still to battle against sin as long I live, but I am new.  I have died with Christ and I find my identity in Him not my former life.

¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I am not a sinner, but the righteousness of God.  It's not through anything that I did.  Christ did it all.  This is why I share my lessons with the world.  I want them to have what I have.