If needed, a brief explanation and instructions for this devotion can be found on Wednesday’s IMMERSION for this week.
Read the bible verse that follows and record your immediate reaction in terms of emotions and thought. What is it making you feel? What is it making you think?
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
~ The Apostle Paul
Now meditate on the above bible verse for 2-10 minutes considering 2 Corinthians 5:14 which says: "Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died."
Then record your reflective response (consider taking a short walk to enhance your reflection time).
Read through the surrounding verses of 2 Corinthians 5:11-21. Record any further thoughts or emotions that arose as a result of your reading.
2 Corinthians 5:11-21
The Ministry of Reconciliation
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:[a] 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[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Footnotes:
2 Corinthians 5:17 Or Christ, that person is a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:21 Or be a sin offering
Formulate a prayer based on the start of this new year about:
• Your existence as a new creation in Christ (verses 17, 21)
• Being compelled by Christ’s love (verses 11, 19)
• What and who you are living for (verses 15, 18-20)