SS Text and Lesson for this week: The Right Motivation 2 Cor. 5:1-21

The Right Motivation
Scriptures: 2 Cor. 5:1-21


According to Paul in the first eight verses of this chapter, there are two things that distinguish the believer from the unbeliever regarding our attitude toward living in this world: having the Holy Spirit and walking by faith. Being Spirit-filled is our down payment - our engagement ring - that promises and seals our entrance into God's kingdom. We work for His kingdom in the temporal world knowing it is not our true home. We're aware that our earthly bodies are wasting away and long for our incorruptible ones. It is the Spirit who also guides us in ways that are pleasing to God the Father. And when we face the Lord at the time of the judgment it will be those deeds we did through the Spirit's power that will show our saving relationship to Him. It is those things that will last.

The love Christ has for us moves us forward in ministry to accomplish what God sets before us. In his earlier letter to Corinth Paul expounded on this fact in one of the most beloved chapters of the Bible. We often quote the "love chapter" at weddings or other special occasions, and there's nothing wrong with that. But remember that Paul wrote it between two chapters on using our spiritual gifts for the good of others in the church. In other words, if we don't serve and minister in self-sacrificial love, then what we do is nothing to God. Even if we minister to the best of our abilities, God is more interested in the attitudes of our hearts. It's as if Christ says to us, "You've seen how I loved you. Now, go and do likewise." See John 15:12 for a cross-reference to this truth.

Verse 21 often gives Bible teachers pause because we tend to interpret it as if Jesus literally "became" sin. We may believe Christ, fully human in His material flesh, somehow became an immaterial thing. But that's not so, any more than the animals offered as sin sacrifices under the old covenant became sin. Rather, those creatures became objects of God's wrath and punishment, shedding the required blood for the forgiveness of sin. Another way of translating this verse might be: "He treated Him, who knew not sin, like a sinner." Jesus did not become sin, itself, but rather stood in the place of the sinner - you and me.

Some questions to consider as you prepare this week.  Please continue to also, pray for revival and a GREAT AWAKENING among God's people.  We are living in "historic" times of a very biblical nature.  We must be the Salt and Light of the World.

1. How do we please God?
2. Verse 11. How do we go about persuading men?
   
3. Has Christ's love ever compelled you to do anything?
   
4. How do we become people who are compelled by Christ's love? How can we become more affected - less apathetic - about Christ's love?
   
5. Verse 17. What is the old? What is the new?
   
6. Do things become new all at once, or gradually?
   
7. Does the Bible have a high view of man or a low view of man? Is our trouble thinking too much of ourselves, or to little of ourselves?
   
8. How do we come to believe - really believe that we are the righteousness of God in Christ?
   

Again, thanks and see you Sunday.  Pray, Read God's Word, carry a burden for the Lost.  People are dieing and going to hell in our very midst.