January 26, 2025
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Deuteronomy and Corinthians? Here’s today’s reading:
2 Corinthians 5 (NIV)
Awaiting the New Body
1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.……Continue Reading
Reconciliation something we typically think of when two people, who have likely both made some mistakes, need to come back together and fix things. We think about marriages, families, even workplaces. But here Paul is talking about how God is looking to initiate reconciliation with us and yet He never did anything wrong. Imagine He sent His son to pay for our sin and shame, He experienced separation from His Father and great physical pain to make a way for reconciliation with us and all we need to do as the offending party is accept it! This is when we take the eternal mindset, we walk by faith not by sight realizing this world with all its momentary trials and hurts is not the end. We choose to follow knowing ALL He has done to bring us into relationship with Him no matter how undeserving and we have the privelege to share that amazing testimony of love, mercy, and grace with others that they might join us in eternity too!
2CORINTHIANS 5
I love the reminder to live for Christ on earth as we are only living temporarily in it. Life on earth is but a preparation for a longer life after death. Compared to eternity, life on earth is like a speck of dust.
2 Corinthians 5
“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. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:20-21 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/2co.5.20-21.NIV
Praise God for His mercy on us! I love the image of our bodies being tents that, in time, will be shed and we will live in spirit bodies.
Philippians1:21
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
The Greeks believing that the soul goes on to eternal life, but there is no resurrected body Paul confronts that and explains the new heavenly body that we’re all going to receive. Ambassadors for Christ here on earth that should not be taken lightly.
2 Corinthians 5
2 Corinthians 5
A call to focus on our true purpose and to keep our eyes on the prize!
I think verse 21 explains it very well what the Lord has done for all of mankind. VS 21 {For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.} So much of our salvation is placed on this for without it we are doomed to Hell. Yet God in His mercy has done this for us. We are now become new creations in Christ once we put our trust in Him. Yes we walk by faith and not sight but our faith is not a blind faith. For it is based on facts, as in historical facts about the death and resurrection of Christ. The scriptures told of Him throughout the Old Testament 1,000 of years before it happened. And no man could fulfill all of these except the Christ. I forgot the number but I believe it was in the hundreds. All the first coming of Christ were fulfilled with second coming yet to happen. Perhaps in our lifetime. Christ calls us as believers to live for Him and not ourselves. vs 15. May we all be grateful for what He has done for us.
Yeah, I feel like that sometimes, like ok I’ve had enough, I’m ready to get out of this life and be with God. But I love my family and friends and I know that while I’m alive on this Earth, there is work to be done. I pray for us all to have the understanding of exactly what our purpose is, each day, so we can do it – looking forward to the hope we have when God calls us to our heavenly home.
Who of us doesn’t know the tension between the consistent challenges of this life and the ultimate peace and freedom we will experience in heaven.? Certainly heaven would be better, but we will tarry with the good, the bad and the ugly while we are still here on earth, knowing those things are in God’d hands. But while here, to live is Christ and to die is gain. And with God in us and with us, we will willingly accomplish the things He has for us, knowing full well, that is what He has called us to, and our goal is to please Him. Because at some point, our works will be evaluated and we will gain or lose rewards based on what we have done while in the body. And what better to have and realize while we exist here on earth, that we are new creations. The old us is gone and the new us is made in Christ. And all of that is part of the reconciliation that we have with God through Jesus. Yet we are not to keep that knowledge of reconciliation to ourselves. He has made us His ambassadors, making His appeal to the world through us. Let’s be good ones!
”For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.“
II Corinthians 5:1, 9 NKJV