JESUS IS THE FOCUS OF OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

Second Corinthians is a valuable guide in examining our own motives for serving the Lord, whether as lay people or as ordained pastors and evangelists. As an instrument of the Holy Spirit, this letter can refine our motives until we reflect the kind of selfless giving best exemplified in Christ, but also found in His servant Paul. The instructions concerning the collection for Jerusalem (chs. 8 and 9) emphasize generosity in the area of financial resources, just as Paul emphasized generosity in self-giving throughout the book.

Jesus Christ is the focus of our relationship with God. All God’s promises to us are Yes in Jesus, and we say “Amen” to God’s promises in Jesus (1:19, 20). Jesus is God’s Yes to us and our Yes to God. Only in Christ do we see the glory of God, and only in Him are we transformed by that glory (3:14, 18), for Christ is the very image of God (4:4–6). God came to us in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself (5:19). Thus, it is “in Christ” that we have become new creatures (5:17). This change was accomplished through the marvelous act of God’s grace in which Christ, “who knew no sin,” became “sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (5:21).

Jesus is also the focus of our service to God. We proclaim Jesus as Lord and ourselves as servants for His sake (4:5). We willingly share not only Christ’s life and glory but also His dying (4:10–12), His willingness to be weak so that others might experience the power of God (13:3, 4, 9), and His willingness to be impoverished so that others might be enriched (8:9). We experience His weakness but also His strength as we seek to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (10:5).

Again, Jesus is the focus of our present life in this world, where we simultaneously experience in our mortal bodies both “the dying of the Lord Jesus” and His life (4:10, 11).

Finally, Jesus is the focus of our future life, for we will be raised up with Jesus (4:14), who is the “betrothed. . .husband” of the church (11:2) and the judge of all men (5:10).

The Holy Spirit is the power of the New Covenant (3:6), because He makes real to us the present and future provisions of our salvation in Christ. By the gift of “the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee,” we are assured that all God’s promises are Yes in Christ, and that we are anointed and “sealed” as belonging to Him (1:20–22). The present experience of the Spirit is specifically “a guarantee” of the glorified bodies we will one day receive (5:1–5).

We do not merely read about the will of God in the “letter” of Scripture, for “the letter [alone] kills.” The Spirit who gives life (3:6) changes our way of living by opening our eyes to the living reality of what we read. Thus, we progressively experience and embody the will of God, and we ourselves become epistles of Christ, “known and read by all men” (3:2).

When we submit ourselves to the work of the Spirit, we experience a miracle. We find that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (3:17). There is liberty to behold the unveiled glory of the Lord and to be changed more and more into the likeness of what we behold. The Holy Spirit gives us freedom to see and freedom to be what God wants us to be (3:16–18).

The work of the Holy Spirit is evident in daily inward renewal (4:16), spiritual warfare (10:3–5), and the “signs and wonders and mighty deeds” of Paul’s ministry in Corinth (12:12). Paul ended his letter with a blessing, which included “the communion [fellowship] of the Holy Spirit” (13:14). This could indicate a sense of the Spirit’s presence or, more likely, an enjoyment of the fellowship the Spirit gives us with Christ and with all people who love Christ.   ~New Spirit-Filled Life Bible

Heavenly Father, I thank and praise You for Your Word, the Holy Scriptures and for the promise that Your Holy Spirit will guide me into all truth. Give me a teachable spirit so that I may learn all that You would teach me in Your word and prevent me from falling into deceptive teaching or false doctrine.

Lord I ask that by Your Holy Spirit You would open my mind to the truth and give me discernment so that I am not tossed about by every wind of doctrine. Thank You for what You are teaching me in Your Word and give me a thirst to read, mark learn and inwardly digest all that You would have me learn.

Lead me in the path of righteousness and guide me into all truth for Your holy names sake and help me to come to a deeper knowledge of the Lord Jesus, so that I may grow in grace and in a knowledge of Him – and of all that You would have me learn. Keep me from pride I pray and may I walk humbly before You all the days of my life – I ask this in the precious name of my Saviour, Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen