Thoughts from 2 Corinthians 5 & 6

What amazing truths we were reminded of this past week as we work our way through the book of 2 Corinthians. I sit in a hotel room right now being reminded of the first point of the message on Sunday and that is that Christ was credited my sin and I was credited his righteousness (God makes sinners righteous) Amazing thought and truth!!! The theological term called Reconciliation describes the reality of the length God the Father went to repair the breach humanity experienced through sin and death.

The concept that people are an enemy of God is not very popular today. Romans 5:8-10 teaches us that we are sinners, thus, we are enemies of the perfect holiness of God. God's word teaches us though that God went to the greatest of lengths to make sinners righteous. We have to see the truth of God's wrath before we can ever understand His never ending love he has for everyone of us. "But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners(while we wanted nothing to do with him, or living as if he didn't exist) Christ died for everyone of us."

POINT #1--God makes sinners righteous!!

Because of this reality, those sinners that are MADE righteous by the sovereignty of God are motivated to live out this righteousness in daily life. Embedded in several passages of 2 Corinthians is found some of these motivations.
1. we understand that we will give account to the one that was willing to exchange our sin for his
righteousness. What we did with that incredible demonstration of love.
2. Having a healthy fear of God, while motivated by the awe of Jesus Christ love for me.
3. We are motivated to see people properly. We seek not to use the externals of people's lives, but
to see them through the lens of Christ love and sacrifice for us.
4. We are motivated by the truth that this new covenant that has been established by the death of
Christ allows us to live in the freedom that it brings. We can forgive those that intentionally
desire to cause us harm. We can do the things otherwise our old self could never accomplish.

POINT #2--ENDURANCE admist adversities is a strong quality of authenticity in the life of a christian's walk

In chapter six of 2 Corinthians, Paul elaborates on the importance of this quality of endurance. God
give us all this type of endurance admist adversities.

MY Prayer for all that read this BLOG:

Father, help each one that has experienced your love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ your son be
reminded that they are made righteous not by what they have done right or enough times, but because You
just demonstrated your love sovereignly to them and they are righteous in your eyes now. Help them not
to live in the bondage of guilt, but in the freedom that comes through the Spirit of the Living God.
Help each one to allow the Holy Spirit to conquer their flesh and live in the power of the Spirit, in
order to allow others to truly see your nature and essence. I pray that you will give them the
endurance through difficult times so that others will see authentic christianity, not religion. May we
all live to make Your name GREAT!!!