As I dig through 2 Corinthians, I am drawn back to my childhood. Kay and Doc were our neighbors, but we loved them like family. Kay had a lot of health issues and I think the ocean was for her a place of solace and closeness to Her Jesus. So they went often and at times brought me with them. Kay and I would comb the shore doing a dance she called the "Sanibel stoop". Walk, Stoop, Collect a shell, stand up, walk some more, repeat. Those treasures we found filled our bucket and continue to fill my memories and my home.
God's Word is like that.
I found some treasure for my bucket today in
2 Corinthians 3. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth and He has been talking to them about WHO they are. He has touted them as prayer warriors and the fragrance of Christ. He paints pictures of them being ambassadors of the Savior and with each word he writes I am filled with longing. I want to be like that. I want to be to others, the "fragrance of the knowledge of Him", I want to be a prayer warrior. Then I realize; although he writes this to the church at Corinth He also writes it to the Church today. To me, to you, to all who proclaim Christ as their Savior. He tells us we
are all these things. We are "to God, the aroma of Christ", through us He "spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him." Then in chapter three he pens the sweetest thing, he says we are also a "life giving letter".
Funny, because I think so often we can be the life-suckers. Many on the outside looking in, those who are perishing, they see us as rule-followers and finger pointers, Bible thumpers and the righteous elite. We paint a picture in our heads of us -vs- them. Sometimes leaving an impression that says you are bad and I am good. At times we get so caught up in the letter of the law that we forget that "the letter kills". We often forget that it was that "letter of the law" that condemned
us. Remember? That law set us up to see that God's standards are truly impossible for us to fulfill. Our
inability to keep the "letter of the law" shines a huge spotlight on our unrighteousness!
OUR unrighteousness.
We are a life giving letter because God has lifted the veil from our eyes through Jesus Christ and we see! No longer dull in our thinking, we understand that "The Lord is Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is
freedom!" It is not us -vs- them, we
were them! It is us
sent to them! It is us
along side of them. We are called to be
a life giving letter, a letter full of a glory that
surpasses that of the
glory that shown on Moses face when the Lord passed him by in the cleft of the rock. We know the gospel truth, Jesus came into the world to bear God's wrath for our unrighteousness, we have received His gift and now "
We who with
unveiled faces" -
We reflect His glory.
We are His love letter.
We are
a life giving letter of hope and freedom.
There are countless beach combers walking around, looking for the treasure. They are distracted by the world & owned by the enemy, just like we were. They bend and stoop but they don't see the treasure because there is a veil that covers their eyes.
God sent them a letter but will we get close enough to let them open it?
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