2 Corinthians 5:16-21 

Read Jeremiah 6:16 and John 20:21 

Vs 15 – called for us to no longer live for ourselves, but for the one who died for us. The love of Christ compels the Believer, the Christian, to live for God and not for self. 

A true Christian no longer lives for themselves, a believer states, along with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Now whether that is your love of Christ or His love of you is moot as we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

If you are a born-again believer then you have been born again into the family of God. God is a believer’s heavenly father and they, believers, are now of the household of God. When you were a child, you lived in the house hold of your parents, having freedoms and responsibilities that those outside that household did not have, while also answering to your parents for all you said and did. 

Vs. 16 – Jesus Christ died for all: Jew and gentile, male and female, every race, color, and national origin…

“For all“, everyone, Jew and gentile alike no matter their race, color or gender, “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But, “anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God” (John 3:18).

Their old way of life is dead in Christ and now they/we have the obligation to live for Him.

Believers can no longer regard others as they once did, from a worldly perspective, by race, color, gender, by education, or income levels. There is only one race, there are only believers and unbelievers, those heaven bound and those who will weep in darkness, gnashing their teeth in the fires of Hell, experiencing, “eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and the power of His might…” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

Believers are under the obligation to live differently than those of the world. Believers have consecrated themselves to live for Christ and not for self. To live for self is to seek your own pleasure, reward, and gain; it is the disregarding of the interests of others.

Jesus Christ gave himself for all of mankind, knowing the cost of salvation. His life for mine, I now have been bought at a price. The life of a believer belongs to Jesus Christ or else we would still be dead in our sin. 

Since the believer lives for God, they can no longer be fulfilling the desires of the flesh, of self. The believer can no longer deal with people from a worldly perspective. 

Instead, a believer looks at others out of the love of God. It is this love compels to reach up and reach out with the message of reconciliation. This is the love we need to live out of… We must look at others from the perspective of love not from that worldly perspective of self.

Christ died to bring life to a world dead in sin. But not all have that life in them, life is provided for them in Christ if they choose that way, if they have received the message that believers are to impart.

Believers are the Heaven sent to the Hell-bound. It is our responsibility to spread the message of Christ, “The old has gone the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17)! Each and everyone can be reconciled to, and with, God through Jesus Christ. This is God’s gift to all of mankind, this is the good news! This is the message of reconciliation that believers are to share as Ambassadors for Christ.

Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

John 3:3

Everyone is born into this world, we all lived like the world, sinned and come short of God’s glory…

 The old life is gone, the new has come! A believer is now a child of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, a minister of reconciliation, an ambassador for Christ, and as that ambassador, you are to do all in Jesus Name!

Discussion Guide:

• Are you living for yourself or for Christ and His Church?
• Have you set aside your worldly perspective?
• Are you an ambassador of Christ; a minister of reconciliation?

Further Reading: Jeremiah 6:16, John 20:21, John 3:1-8, 16-18, 23, Ephesians 2:1-3, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Matthew 7:21-27