Ambassadors for Christ

So last night at Bible study we did something a little different because it was the final all-girl’s Bible study for the summer due to the fact that we will be meeting as a whole college group for the rest of the summer. We were supposed to come with a verse that had been encouraging to us or really spoke to us during this past semester of life.

Well the girl who went first read through the whole chapter of 2 Corinthians 5 and then talked through parts of it. Here are different verses that stood out to me and thoughts I had about them as well as some truths the girl pointed out to the rest of us.

2 Corinthians 5:9, “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. ”
This verse reminded me of what I have been reading in Don’t Waste Your Life and how are whole lives are to be dedicated to bringing God honor and glory. When we are home—in heaven—we will be pleasing Him through our worship and when we are not in our eternal home—when we are here on this earth—it should be our goal to please God. Wherever we are this is to be the goal and mission of the believer.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. ”
Our lives are to be directed by the love of Christ. His love for us and what He did at the Cross should motivate us to live for Him and our love and gratefulness for Him for what He did for us. Christ died for us and if we are one with Him, we have died too and because He died for us and raised us with new life we are to no longer live to serve ourselves but to live for Christ and to serve Him and let our lives be His to use for His glory. Again…this was totally along the lines of what I have been reading/learning in Don’t Waste Your Life.

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ”
Since we have been raised with Christ we have a new life, a new spirit, and a new purpose to live our lives! It is only through this new life and being totally made new that we can have true joy because our joy will be found in the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. ”
This verse just totally exudes the Gospel! “All this” refers to the old creation passing away and the new one coming. The reality of us being made new creations was brought about by God through the work of Christ. God ministered to us by reconciling us to Himself even though we did not deserve to receive His grace. God reconciles sinners to Himself because of Christ and the result of this is that we are not condemned by our sins.

2 Corinthians 5:20-21, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. ”
Because of being reconciled to Christ (that is what the “therefore” is there for) we are ambassadors or messengers for Christ and it is our job to share with others what Christ did for us on the cross to reconcile us to God. It was for us that Christ allowed Himself to die in the place of us instead of making us die the deaths to pay the blood sacrifice for our guilt. He did this so that we might become righteous in the sight of God. Christ paid our debt because there was no way that we would/will/or could be able to make ourselves guilt-free before a holy and righteous God.
This love that God showed us through Christ should control our very lives and it should cause us to want to tell others that they are sinners and yet there is a way that they can be saved through faith in Christ. This love of God should also control us in that it then causes us to long to dedicate our lives to serving God and honoring Him. We can only live for the purpose of pleasing God. Ultimately, all we have to offer people is Christ and the message of salvation.

It was interesting thinking about all of this and thinking about the people we will be dealing with at my work this summer. It is so cool because my boss is a believer and the two other girls I am also working with right now are believers too. So before we start work each day we have a little devotional and pray which is so cool! My boss brought up the following passage to us.

Psalm 67, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, Your saving power among all nations. Let the people praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise You! The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God; shall bless us. God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear Him! ”

This was just such a neat psalm to read through! We were asking God to bless us so that we might show His love to the unbelieving families we come in contact with this summer. We want families to see that we are different and we want them to ask us why we are different. My boss brought up the fact that we are dealing with a lot of families of many different ethnic backgrounds and we want to make known His saving power to these people. Essentially, we want to make known His saving power “among all nations.” We will be in contact with many Caucasian families, yes, but we will also be around many Jewish, Armenian, Korean, and Indian people as well. It is especially cool that we will be around so many Jewish people our God—at least the God of the Old Testament that the Jews today “believe” it—is the exact same God! We are just praying that we have opportunities to share Christ with the people around us. We are God’s ambassadors to these people. We can live our lives as new creatures and tell of the reconciliation that Christ has brought to us. Our knowledge of this reconciliation and act of love should control our very lives and cause us to point people to the Cross. It should cause us to point people to the ultimate display of God’s glory in His work on the Cross.

I just love that what I was reading in Don’t Waste Your Life corresponded with what my boss talked about Monday morning at work which corresponded with one thing we were talking about at Bible study last night!!!! God is definitely at work in my life and it is evident that He is wanting me to learn something about serving Him with my whole life. Praise the Lord!!!