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2 Corinthians 5:14-15

For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

Personal challenge

So, what are we compelled to do because of the love of Jesus? We are compelled to stop living our lives just for ourselves and to live them for God and our neighbor. Why? Because we embrace that Jesus died for us, and not just for those of us who profess Him as our Lord and Savior, but He died for all of mankind. Because of this, we are compelled to die to ourselves and to live for others. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Isaiah 41:10

Fear not, for I am with you. Do not go astray, for I am your God who strengthens you; and I will help and secure you with My righteous right hand.

Encouraging Words

We have nothing to fear for we have been promised by God that He will be there to help and secure us. Glory be to God!

2 Corinthians 5:6-8

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Personal Challenge

For those of us who choose to follow Christ, our desire is to be present with our Lord. However, this means separation from our physical body. Since God, in His infinite wisdom, keeps us here in our physical body, we can go through each day with confidence that He will be here with us every moment of everyday. We are confident in His love, His mercy, and His grace. Glory be to God!

Isaiah 40:29-31

He gives strength to the hungry, and sorrow to those who do not grieve. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the elect shall be without strength. But those who wait on God shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not hunger.

Encouraging Words

This has become my favorite passage in the entire scriptures. I have grown to a point where I claim this as my life verse. Why? Because it is all about God, our loving, merciful, and giving Father. He gives us all so much and asks for nothing in return. But if we do give back to Him what little we have, He blesses it and gives us all the more. He renews our strength, especially if we spend it living for Him. He raises us up to the heights of the soaring eagles, especially if we do what He desires of us. We will not be weary or hungry as He fills us with Himself. Glory be to God!

2 Corinthians 5:1

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.

Encouraging Words

It almost looks like I planned this verse to go with yesterday’s, but I did not. So to continue this theme of our bodies today and our bodies after we are resurrected, God has promised us that our physical bodies are just temporary dwellings. Our real homes, our resurrected bodies, will be so much more than we can ever hope for. They will not perish. They will not grow old, feeble, tired, and full of pain. They will be able to be fully used to glorify our God and to serve Him with no hindrances or obstacles. This is what we hope for and this hope is what helps us through each day. Glory be to God!

Isaiah 40:7-8

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever.

Encouraging Words

We all know that the physical world around us is subject to decay or fading away. Our homes, cars, and other possessions slip into disrepair. Our bodies wither with time. All in this physical world will some day be gone. But God does not. He is always the same, whole, complete and perfect. It is because of this that we have hope. We have hope in the eternal, living God. We have hope in His Word, our Lord Jesus Christ. We have hope that even though our physical body will wither and fade, we will live on through eternity in the new bodies that He will give us. Glory be to God!

2 Corinthians 4:16

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

Encouraging Words

There was a day when I felt invincible. There was nothing that I could not do if I put my mind to it and pushed through. However, as I am growing older, my body is telling me that this is not so. My outward man is perishing, day by day. We all grow older and encounter the results of aging. Paul, however, reminds us that even though our bodies are deteriorating, our inward man, that which has been renewed by our loving Lord, is constantly being renewed, day by day. He continues to pour himself into us and lead us on our journey to theosis, which is growing in His image. God does not leave us alone but invests Himself in us every moment of our lives. All of this is part of our salvation. My Orthodox Study Bible describes our salvation in Christ as the following:

The Orthodox Faith teaches that salvation in Christ includes: 

1) a passage from death to life, from darkness to light (John 3:1–6; Colossians 1:13, 14), through repentance, faith, and baptism (“I have been saved”); 

2) a process of spiritual growth and maturation (2. Peter 1:2–8) through ongoing repentance, faith, and communion, often called deification (“I am being saved”); and 

3) a promise of eternal life (2 Corinthians 5:9–11; John 14:1–6), calling us to perseverance and righteousness (“I shall be saved”).

It is this second element, the process of our salvation, that Paul describes here, saying that our inner life is being renewed day by day.

How encouraging it is to know that God loves us this much. Glory be to God!

Isaiah 35:10

and those gathered by the Lord shall return and come to Zion with gladness, and with everlasting gladness over their head. For praise and exceeding joy will be on their head, and gladness shall possess them. Pain, sorrow, and sighing fled away.

Encouraging words

This past Sunday, I asked my high school class, “Why are you a Christian?” The response caught me off guard. The response was a room full of blank stares. So, lesson set aside, we dug into that question. My objective as a high school church school teacher is to engage these youth in a way that causes them to be independent thinkers who apply Gods’ truth in everything that they do. They cannot make it through college and adult life with their parents’ Christianity. It has to be their own. God does not have any grandchildren, only His own children. Needless to say, we will be continuing to dig into this, “Why?” question more. Isaiah gives us one of the many answers that we Christians can give when asked why we follow Jesus. Hope! Because of Jesus, we hope for that day when there will be no more pain, sorrow, or sighing in our lives. We believe that Jesus will bring us into His Kingdom, His Zion, and this will be the result, a place filled with gladness, everlasting gladness, filled with praise and exceeding joy, and yes, a place with no more pain, sorrow, and sighing. Come, Lord Jesus, come!

2 Corinthians 4:7-10

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

Encouraging Words

Once again we are reminded that our specialness, the greatness that comes from us, is not something that we do or are. We are only clay pots made from the dirt of the earth. What makes us special and good in the sight of our Lord is that which He has put in these vessels. First of all, He breathed His image into these clay pots. Then He became a clay pot Himself as Jesus became incarnate. Finally, He fills us with His Holy Spirit when we became His children through our baptism and chrismation. It is because of Him that we can withstand the pressure from the world around us and not feel despair or the feeling of being forsaken or destroyed. Glory be to God!