Day 9 – 2 Corinthians 5:13-21

For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.^[1]

Our relationship with Jesus should make all the difference in the world in every aspect of our lives. It should change how we view ourselves, our circumstances, our past, our future, even those who have harmed us. We should see a fundamental change in our outlook on life because we are new creations. We have been made new through the blood of the Lamb. We no longer view people in the same way we did. Before Christ we allowed our prejudices to control us. We formed unfair opinions about wholes races and cultures, and sometimes genders, because of the offence we received from one or a few. But Christ changed all of that, or at least that is what should have happened.

The truth of the matter is that we often succumb to the temptation to hold onto our former way of reasoning, our former way of looking at our realities, our former way of parsing out our current situations. Pressed against the wall or backed into a corner our tendency is to retreat to what we once depended on in similar situations not realizing that it served only to damage our witness. We are not perfect beings which means, of course, that we will not always get things right. There will be times when we fail and fall but that is not what I mean. I am referring to an attitude that sees no necessity to change a thing about how one navigates through life. I referring to the lives in which no discernable change is evident. If Christ has not made a difference in a person’s life then one must surely question whether that one has truly met Him.

Dear Lord, we confess that we too often revert to our old way of thinking and behaving. We are too impatient and feel we cannot wait upon You, so we take matters into our own hands and make incredible messes out of our lives and the lives of others. We want to walk hand in hand with you, we want to do the right thing in every avenue of our lives but we need your help. So, empower us this day with Your Holy Spirit to do and say the right things. Help us to crucify our flesh so that we will not act according to it. This we ask in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.

^[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), 2 Co 5:13–21.