Posts that reference the book of 2 Corinthians

2 Cor

Don’t Receive His Grace in Vain

By Paula

We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 Corinthians 6:1

The grace God gives us because of Jesus Christ is a precious gift. We can’t begin to place a value on it.

Sometimes, though, we don’t value it. For example . . .

His grace gives us talents we don’t use.
Opportunities we don’t take.
Ministries we avoid.

His grace provides forgiveness we don’t receive.
Guidance we don’t follow.
Standards we don’t embrace.

His grace affords us a position we don’t aspire to.
Access we don’t avail ourselves of.
Intimacy we don’t enter into.

Paul pleads, “Don’t receive the grace of God in vain.”
Don’t squander it.
Don’t ignore it.
Don’t waste it.

He is Risen!

By Paula Wiseman

But [the angel] said to [the women], “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. Mark 16:6

This is an incredible moment – literally. Too extraordinary and improbable to be believed. Jesus told them. (Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19). He had raised Lazarus a week or two before. But the women (and the rest of the disciples) go on, operating on their own understanding of how life works, how it has always worked. That’s about to change. Incredibly.

God graciously sends an angel to help the women understand what had happened. Let’s break down his message.

Do not be alarmed. – Our first response to drastic change and worldview shift is … stress and worry. Things are uncertain and no longer secure. But in this case, the change is the best thing ever.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth – The angel knew the mission the women were on. And they could be confident that this message was for them,

Who was crucified – He didn’t “swoon” or faint. He died. No one survived a Roman crucifixion.

He is risen! – Jesus is no longer dead. He has been raised by the power of God.

He is not here – This is a tomb, where dead people are. He is not dead, so He is not here.

See the place where they laid Him – You are not in the wrong tomb. Here’s is the place where you saw the body laid on Friday afternoon. Now the body is gone. Jesus isn’t just “spiritually” raised. He isn’t a ghost. His body has come back to life.

The Resurrection changes everything

We change from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.
The payment for all our sins has been accepted.
Every word Jesus said is true.
We are reconciled to God
We are adopted into His family.
We have an inheritance and eternal life.
And so much more …

If you don’t believe He is risen …

Then you don’t believe the gospel. Paul preached the Resurrection, and he said if anyone preached anything different from what he had preached, that was another gospel, a false gospel. (2 Corinthians 11:4, Galatians 1:8-9)

Then you aren’t saved. Paul says in Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” The Resurrection proves the sin debt is paid. You must believe that Jesus Christ’s death was for your sins and that He was raised, proving you are right with God.

You have no hope.

Paul walks through the logical implications if Christ is not risen from the dead.

And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up–if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.
1 Corinthians 15:14-19

Jesus Christ is risen, as He said. That is the theme of Acts and the Letters. It is the reason for the praise offered to Christ in the Revelation, praise He alone is worthy to receive.

Since that morning, the Resurrection has changed everyone who has believed it. The women. The disciples. Us.
We have hope. We have life, and we have a message to share.

Sound Mind Theology: Distortions and Fallacies

By Paula Wiseman

When someone asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was He answered, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment (Mark 12:29-30). As believers, we get that. Over the next several posts, I want to focus on the mind part. Today, we’ll do kind of a lengthy introduction and lay the foundation. You see, since the Fall we have struggled not only with the content of our thoughts but the process as well. Yes, even the very way we size up situations and apply knowledge and experience to them is tainted by sin. In other words, we are constantly plagued by fallacies and cognitive distortions.

What’s a fallacy?

A fallacy is a mistaken belief we hold that’s based on faulty logic. Here’s a dumb example. Cats have four legs. Winnie has four legs. Therefore, Winnie is a cat. The conclusion seems to follow, right? Well, Winnie is my dog, my four-legged non-cat dog. The conclusion was built on some faulty premises. Yes, cats have four legs, but so do a lot of other critters. The REALITY is, Winnie is a dog. (See a picture of Winnie.)

Let me get a little more personal. I have failed many times. God doesn’t use people who fail. Therefore, God can’t use me. Again, while that seems to follow, the premises are so faulty. So faulty. Everyone fails. If God is going to use any people, His only options are people who fail. God does in fact use people who have failed. Therefore, He most certainly can use you.

Cognitive distortions

Distortions are much trickier to root out. We reinforce these unfounded, irrational ideas — almost always about ourselves, overwhelmingly negative –so often that they become automatic. They are our go-to responses.

For example, let’s say one of my students scores a ninety-five on a chemistry test. Her response is, “Well, the test was probably just easy. I bet everyone else got A’s too.” That’s messed up. You know it and I know it. Chemistry isn’t easy. Clearly, she scored well because she studied and she’s smart enough to understand the material.

The insidious thing about cognitive distortions is that we are so comfortable with them we no longer see the irrationality of our thinking. Usually, a close confidant has to point out the distortions. Sometimes, we will fight and defend our distortion when someone calls us on it.

And we often don’t realize we can change those deeply held distortions. We just need a dose of truth.

The source of truth

For believers, everything goes back to the Word of God. Applying the truth of what God says about Himself and about us is the only way we can realign the fallacies and distortions we hang on to. When we live in the light God’s word, we can exchange those lies for truth.

So over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at some fallacies and distortions and apply a healthy dose of truth to them, “taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

All Things New: The Charge

By Paula Wiseman

As a new year begins, our thoughts naturally tend toward making a fresh start. As believers, we have already experienced the freshest start possible. Our sins have been wiped away completely, and we are a new creation. Paul says as much in 2 Corinthians 5:17. We have a new birth, new life, new position, new nature, new goals, new relationships, a new mission, a new purpose … and many more. But the key to all of this, we learned was God’s divine initiative. We also learned He manifested that initiative through covenants. In Jesus’s last night with His disciples, He issued a new charge that would forever mark them — and us — as His followers. We learn about it from the Apostle John.

The Charge to Love

That night in the Upper Room, before announcing He was leaving, or that He would be betrayed, even before the supper itself, Jesus gave His followers a new commandment.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35

The command to love wasn’t necessarily new. In Leviticus, God had instructed His people to love their neighbors and strangers as themselves (Lev. 19:18, 34). This charge is new for two key reasons.

“As I have loved you.”

Jesus commanded to love as He loved. That means we love sacrificially. Jesus made God’s love real and tangible. We are to do the same. People need to understand God loves them through the things we do, the ways we serve. It is a love not bound to emotions, but by commitment. It is the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love. It is costly because it is deep and loyal but it is our highest calling.

“By this all men will know”

Loving like Christ loves is distinctive. In fact, it is THE distinctive of the new community of believers. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, Jesus lays out the principles this new community would operate under.

The Motivation for Love

In Exodus 20, God began the Ten Commandments with the statement, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Exodus 20:2). Because of who God is and what He has done, He has a right to call for our obedience.

John expands on that, though, in his first epistle.

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:10-11

That rescue from slavery was a prelude to the ultimate rescue – saving us from our sins. God did that out of His great love for us. Our proper response to His action (to His initiative) is love. We demonstrate our love for God by our love for one another.

The Charge Fulfilled

A principal established in the Old Testament is that obedience brings blessings, not in quid pro quo kind of way, but it is undeniable that living God’s way is best for us. John writes quite a bit about love, both God’s love for us and our charge to love others. If you read the Gospel of John and his epistles, especially 1 John, love is a major theme. I want to highlight three verses in particular.

The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 1 John 2:10 – It is evidence of a transformed life to love others the way Christ loved. Plus, if you think about it, there are a host of sins you will not commit if you love others like Christ. You won’t lie or cheat someone. You won’t commit sexual sins. You won’t be overcome with arrogance. Everything is different.

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 1 John 3:14 – It is evidence and reassurance to us that we love others. If we ever have doubts about our salvation, we can always return to this checkpoint – do we love others?

No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:12 – Now don’t let the word perfected cause confusion. John doesn’t mean that God’s love is somehow lacking until we get involved. That’s not it at all. This draws on an older meaning of perfected. God’s love is completed when we love others. Think of it like this — God’s love began with God the Father, with His redemptive plan. His love was manifested, made evident in Jesus Christ. God’s love then reaches a final stage when His people demonstrate love toward others, imitating Him.

Of course, we’ll never be able to love perfectly as long as we are in our natural bodies. But that is a post for another day. We’ll wrap up next week when take a closer look at the time when all things, including all of creation, are made new.

Bearing Up in Trouble

By Paula

“Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and awesome God, who keeps covenant and mercy: Do not let all the trouble seem small before You that has come upon us. Nehemiah 9:32

I have some friends who had struggled for years with infertility issues, then just before Christmas, they announced they were expecting. Not long after they lost the baby. The family of a boy on my son’s football team lost their home and everything in it. Another friend of mine is dealing with her husband’s second cancer diagnosis and her mother’s most recent one. I’m sure you know people in similar situations — good people for whom the roof has seemed to have fallen in.

Or maybe you are one.

Often, when trouble hits, very sincere people will hold our hands, or maybe lay a hand on our shoulders, and say, “God never gives you more than you can bear.” They mean to comfort. They mean to encourage us that we’ll make it through. I deeply respect that.

But they’re wrong.

Our world is broken. Because of the curse of sin there is evil and injustice and heartbreak. And no one is more heartbroken than God Himself. He sent Jesus to erase the reality of sin and its effects on the people He loves and the world He made. We live in the in-between time, a time between the making of the promise, of setting the plan in motion and its final fulfillment. Terrible things still happen. Trouble still comes.

We were never meant to bear hard times alone.

Jesus said in John 15:5 “Without Me you can do nothing.” Yet, we get the idea that we have to hold up, and carry on no matter what happens. Alone. As if to prove ourselves. That’s wrongheaded. In reality, God ONLY allows more than we can bear because He never intended for us to bear it. He meant for trouble to drive us to Him. Jesus means for us to live a life of dependence.

Paul deals with this in 2 Corinthians 12:9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Jesus says, “Paul, it’s not about removing you from the situation. I want you to depend on Me through it.” Somehow in our minds, we rearrange, “My grace is sufficient” to “get through it the best way you can.” But that’s not what Jesus means at all.

The Greek word for “made perfect” comes from the same root word Jesus used when He proclaimed from the cross, “It is finished.” It means His strength will accomplish what is necessary. It will carry us through completely.

Great. That sounds great in theory. How does it work in real life? How do we get from carrying these heavy burdens alone to dependence on Christ’s strength?

First of all, we have to be honest. Stop saying, “I can handle this.” Stop saying, “We’ll get through somehow.”

Second, pour it all out before God. All of it. All of the pent-up ugly emotion. The fear. The sadness. The loss. The confusion. The frustration. If you’re a journaler, now’s the time.

Third, ask for help. Get your trusted friends praying. (They will be glad to, trust me.) There are very likely people around you who have gone through struggles like yours. Ask them for their insights, for their wisdom, and for their prayers too.

Fourth, relinquish it. It’s harder than it sounds because it’s not a power of positive thinking kind of thing. This is an admission that you’re at the end of yourself. That’s totally against our nature, but it’s the same kind of surrender that brought us to Christ in the first place.

Finally, allow yourself time. It takes time to go through difficult situations and it takes time to heal. Give yourself that space.

Surrender gives God the opportunity to work in our situation. And in us.

I would never choose trouble, or pain, or suffering, or tragedy. I doubt anyone would. But those are the times my faith strengthens in ways it never would otherwise. Those are the times when intimacy with God moves from the abstract to the experiential. Those are the times when His presence is real, almost tangible. Those are the times when I begin to understand the meaning of redemption.

(I am prepping for a retreat at the end of September. With your kind indulgence, I’ll be delivering some encore posts for a few weeks.)

A Holy Priesthood: Anointed

By Paula Wiseman

Peter says believers are a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5), drawing parallels with the priesthood established under the Law. Peter packs a lot of information and theological truth in that one metaphor. So let’s take a few posts to break down what Peter wants us to understand. The first thing is God has cleansed us from our sin. We are specially clothed. Next priests are anointed for service.

Old Testament priests were anointed for service.

Leviticus 8:12-30 tells of the ceremony God directed Moses to use to install Aaron and his sons as the priests for the nation of Israel. There were sacrifices to consecrate the priests as well as the altars that would be used. The men were anointed. They ate a ceremonial meal and then remained separated from the people for seven days while continuing to offer more sacrifices.

The anointing was a visible sign to everyone that the priests was chosen, set apart and empowered to carry out his duties by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was the Anointed One.

The Hebrew word for anoint is mashach. The noun form, when transliterated into English is a word you no doubt recognize: messiah. The Greek equivalent word is christos. The Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descended on Christ at His baptism. A close reading of the Gospels shows the Jesus Himself attested to the Holy Spirit’s power and influence in His earthly ministry. The early church recognized that as well. It was one of their regular sermon points.

[H]ow God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
Acts 10:38

Believers are also specially anointed.

Paul explains:

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God,
2 Corinthians 1:21

And John confirms

The anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you don’t need anyone to teach you. Instead, His anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie; just as He has taught you, remain in Him.
1 John 2:27

God has given us a special anointing, the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised us in the Upper Room that the Spirit would come. We don’t have to wait for a special ceremony though. The Spirit indwells us at the moment of salvation, enabling us to understand and carry out the mission God has for us. Paul and John both needed that Holy Spirit anointing, and so do we. That enables us to intercede, minister, and teach the truth about Christ to others.

Once we’re prepared, there is one key that will determine our success. Next week we’ll consider it.