GETTING STARTED
Open up in prayer and invite the Holy Spirit to be with you. Spend 5 minutes being silent and listen to what God may be speaking to you and pray about what He is saying to you.
After this, write down three reasons why you are thankful that Christ has redeemed and fully forgiven you. Write down some of the ways you view yourself in the areas of competency, intelligence, physicality, and spirituality.
2 CORINTHIANS 5: 11-21
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.
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. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 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.
CONSIDER THESE QUESTIONS
1) Paul says in 5:11 “What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.” Write down the ways God views you in the same areas you wrote earlier. Do these match?
2) Paul says in 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” What does it mean to be a new creation?
3) Paul talks about reconciliation in verse 5:18. What does it means to be reconciled?
4) 2 Corinthians 5:20 “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”
Because God has reconciled us, He has given us the right to be ambassadors for his Kingdom. What does an ambassador do? Knowing that we are ambassadors of Christ, how ought this change the way we live for God?
REFLECTION
The Ministry of Reconciliation says that the man of no sin became sin so we could be declared as righteousness. There is nothing too disgusting for Christ to reconcile. In exchange for this reconciliation, God asks us to live in this freedom and be freed from all condemning thoughts or judgments about one’s self or of others.
It is important to reflect on how we view ourselves in comparison to how God views us. Do we hear the loving, invitational voice from God? Or are we caught in our old ways by looking in the mirror and comparing ourselves to the person next to us in envy, reflecting on our past with guilt or being anxious about the future in our inabilities. Through God’s redemption, He has adopted us into his Kingdom and has given us the title of an ambassador—the highest title one can bear for one’s nation. Spend time reading Psalm 51: 1-9 and end your time in prayer of confession and thanksgiving to God!
PSALM 51: 1-9 1
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Continue reading Psalm 51: 1-9.
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