[“Quick Thoughts” are some personal notes and comments I send to my daily Bible reading partners; I thought the blog readers might be edified by them too. If you want to join us in our daily Bible reading accountability group, contact me.]
2Corinthians 5:17-21
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
- Notice this is not a clean up of the old or an addition to what you have… it is a replacement, it’s NEW… the old is GONE
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
- And it all comes from God… nothing we can do for ourselves which we find talked about also in Corinthians… we have nothing we got ourselves, so why have any pride or boasting? The ministry of reconciliation is reconciling sinners to God… we should all be part of that ministry
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.
- “Not counting sin against us”… that is the most priceless statement in all of Scripture… it is the fulcrum or fork in the road that is the difference between heaven and hell, life and death, hopelessness and joy
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[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
- We are AMBASSADORS, not salesmen. Ambassadors bring a MESSAGE, the whole message without variation on behalf of whom they represent. A salesman is pitching a product. For too much of Christianity today, the Gospel has become a product to sell (“Jesus will improve your life”) rather than a message to proclaim (“Jesus will SAVE your life”)
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