2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 - Loving and Living for Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 (KJV) For the love of
Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that
if one died for all, then were all dead: 15 And
that he died for all, that they which live should
not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
him which died for them, and rose again.
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 (NIV) 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.
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 (NLT) Whatever we do,
it is because Christs love controls us.
Since we believe that Christ died for everyone, we
also believe that we have all died to the old
life we used to live. 15 He died for everyone so
that those who receive his new life will no
longer live to please themselves. Instead, they
will live to please Christ, who died and was
raised for them.
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 (ESV) For the love of
Christ controls us, because we have concluded this:
that one has died for all, therefore all have
died; 15 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.
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 (AMP) For the love of
Christ controls and urges and impels us because we
are of the opinion and conviction that [if] One
died for all, then all died; 15 And He died for
all, so that all those who live might live no
longer to and for themselves, but to and for Him
Who died and was raised again for their sake.
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 (MSG) Christ's love
has moved me to such extremes. His love has the
first and last word in everything we do. Our firm
decision is to work from this focused center: One man
died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same
boat. 15 He included everyone in his death so that
everyone could also be included in his life, a
resurrection life, a far better life than people ever
lived on their own.
WORD STUDY
Constraineth. to hold together, to
hold fast, to urge, to impel,
to control. He who chooses to be guided by
the love of Christ will not turn aside from the
path of duty, whether to the right hand or to the
left, but will, like Paul, press forward in the
Lords work, undaunted and with singleness of mind.
The love of Christ keeps the believer safely in
the strait and narrow way. [SDA Bible
Commentary]
INTRODUCTION
Everything that Paul and his companions did
was to honor God. Christ's love controlled their
lives. Because Christ died for us, we also are dead
to our old lives. Like Paul, we should no
longer live to please ourselves; we should spend
our lives pleasing Christ, who died for us and
rose from the grave. [Life Application SB]
COMMENTARY PEARLS
Jesus did not come to men with commands and
threatenings, but with love that is without a parallel.
Love begets love; and thus the love of Christ
displayed upon the cross woos and wins the sinner, and
binds him, repenting, to the cross, believing and
adoring the matchless depths of a Saviour's love.
RH03-04-75
Love the Decision of a Sanctified Will.
--The love of Christ in the heart is what is
needed. Self is in need of being crucified. When
self is submerged in Christ, true love springs
forth spontaneously. It is not an emotion or an
impulse, but a decision of a sanctified will. It
consists not in feeling, but in the transformation of
the whole heart, soul, and character, which is
dead to self and alive unto God. Our Lord and
Saviour asks us to give ourselves to Him.
Surrendering self to God is all He requires, giving
ourselves to Him to be employed as He sees fit. Until
we come to this point of surrender, we shall
not work happily, usefully, or successfully
anywhere (Letter 97, 1898). 6BC1100,1
All true obedience comes from the heart. It
was heart work with Christ. And if we consent,
He will so identify Himself with our thoughts
and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into
conformity to His will, that when obeying Him we shall
be but carrying out our own impulses. The will,
refined and sanctified, will find its highest
delight in doing His service. When we know God as it
is our privilege to know Him, our life will be
a life of continual obedience. Through an
appreciation of the character of Christ, through
communion with God, sin will become hateful to us. As
Christ lived the law in humanity, so we may do if
we will take hold of the Strong for strength.
{DA 668}
You are to be imbued with such love for
Christ that you will yield to Him your whole
affections, surrendering your life to Him who gave His
life for you. Imbued with the love of Christ, you
are to be constrained to perform acts of
unselfish service until such acts become your life
practice. CH633
COMMENTARY
The emphasis here is the complete
reorientation of the life from self to God. The new life
bears witness to the transforming power of the
Holy Spirit. The hearts warmest affections and
best energies are given to Christ, in the small
things of life as well as in the great. The life
brings forth the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22,
23) and reflects the souls delight in doing
the will of God (Ps. 1:2; 119:97). Love to God
and to ones fellow men becomes lifes
controlling motive, and the glory of God is the end of
all thought and action. Such a life becomes more
and more sensitive to sin, more conscious of its
own need, and more ready to depend upon the
grace of Christ. [SDA Bible Commentary]
Although nothing but the love of Christ can
be an adequate controlling power in the life,
it is true that our love for Him is also vital.
But Christs love for us is ever the dominant
factor - we love him, because he first loved
us. [SDA Bible Commentary]
Paul is not saying that it is his love
towards Christ that directs him, although that is
quite true; here he speaks of Christ's love toward
him and his fellow-workers. That love, which
motivated Christ to die on the cross, is the love that
moves them and causes them to endure all things.
[The One Year Bible Companion]
Focus on the Cross. "The love of Christ,"
said Paul, "constraineth us." 2 Corinthians 5:14.
This was the actuating principle of his conduct;
it was his motive power. If ever his ardor in
the path of duty flagged for a moment, one
glance at the cross caused him to gird up anew the
loins of his mind and press forward in the way of
self-denial. In his labors for his brethren he relied
much upon the manifestation of infinite love in
the sacrifice of Christ, with its subduing,
constraining power. {MH 500}
To live to him is the opposite to living
unto ourselves. It is to seek his honor; to feel
that we belong to him; that all our time and
talents; all our strength of intellect and body; all
the avails of our skill and toil, all belong to
him, and should be employed in his service..
To him, and him alone should we live; and in
his cause our lives should be, as Paul's was, a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable in his sight.
(Barnes' Notes)
One of the worst things desperate pastors
and parents do is turn to inadequate motivators
of spiritual growth. Some say you must
and try to force growth. Some say you
should in hope that guilt will move the reluctant.
Some say you can, and try to create a
willingness to try.
Paul said, Jesus loves you. And he
counted on an awakening response of love for Jesus
to move others to want to grow and change.
Keep on telling others, Jesus loves
you, and I love you too. Love is the unseen
reality that motivates spiritual growth and change.
[The 365-Day Devotional Commentary]
ILLUSTRATIONS
George Mueller, at more than ninety years of
age, in an address to ministers and other
Christian workers, said, "I was converted in November
1825, but I didn't come to the point of total
surrender of my heart until four years later, in July
1829. It was then I realized my love for money,
prominence, position, power, and worldly pleasure was
gone. God, and He alone, became my all in all. In
Him I found everything I needed, and I desired
nothing else. By God's grace, my understanding of
His sufficiency has remained to this day, making
me an exceedingly happy man. It has led me to
care only about the things of God. And so, dear
believers, I kindly ask if you have totally surrendered
your heart to God, or is there something in your
life you refuse to release, in spite of God's
call? [Streams in the Desert by Cowman]
Theres Always A Way
Glenda Heisley and her family are
Mennonites who tend a small farm in the pasturelands of
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The Heisleys have a
herd of goats and cows, besides their modest
fields of corn. Glenda loves to sing. and she's a
member of her Church's choir. Shortly after the
terrorist attacks of 2001, she and her choir friends
wondered, How can we help the people of New York City?
Our denomination has already sent medical
supplies, but what can our church do?
They asked God to show them how a few
farmers from the cornfields might encourage the city
folk of New York. God gave them a wonderful idea.
Early one Friday morning, Glenda and her church
friends boarded a bus for New York. They took with
them a stack of CDs, recordings they had done of
all their favorite old hymns.
When they arrived, their bus stopped at a
subway station, and they disembarked. They looked
quite a sight in their simple farming clothes -
including traditional white caps for the women and
straw hats for the men. Standing near the station,
they took a deep breath and began to sing. In
rich, deep, four-part harmony, they sang "Rock of
Ages," and "Dwelling in Beulah Land." Suddenly the
stockbrokers rushing by slowed their pace. Students
exiting the subway to run to class at Columbia
University, paused. Shoppers hesitated. All turned their
heads as they walked by, catching lovely strains
of hymns from what must have seemed to them
like another planet. As they sang, they held out
the free CDs. Gifts of love straight from the
heart, in the name of Jesus.
There is always a way - a creative,
sincere way - to share the love of Christ. For these
Mennonites, it started with prayer, asking God for
direction and fresh ideas. And that's a good place for
you to start today, too.
Use me, Holy Spirit - who I am and where
I am - to show people an alternative to a
shallow, empty life without God. [Joni Eareckson Tada
Daily Devotional:
http://www.joniandfriends.org/daily-devotional]
Creating For The Creator
Artists are by nature often
self-centered. I'm living proof, and so are many of my
creative colleagues. Students of the arts will
recognize the pattern in history's great artists,
writers, and musicians. My wife, Nancy, perceptively
points out those times when I become self-absorbed
(as I prefer to describe the condition). That's
why this verse from 2 Corinthians is so
important to me.
I've come to realize that living for
Christ enables an artist to be truly successful.
When artists don't acknowledge the fact that
their creativity comes from the Creator, they fall
into a dangerous trap. If they do not use their
gifts to glorify God, those gifts can lead them
away from God. The result is often a mixture of
unbalanced priorities, self-importance, and
self-destruction. The tormented artist is not a myth. Consider
Ernest Hemingway, Vincent van Gogh, Jimi Hendrix,
Kurt Cobain, and Jackson Pollock, to name a few.
This single verse not only reminds me
that God gave me a talent for the visual arts but
also gives me the great purpose of communicating
the gospel, which is summed up in the second
half of the verse. One of my most satisfying
commissions was to create large pieces of Scripture for
the walls of a hospital. Many people have told
me that at crisis times in their lives they
received hope and strength through that artwork.
Jesus' words ring true: "It is more blessed to give
than to receive!" (Acts 20:35).
Timothy R. Botts, senior art director at
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., is a calligraphic
artist and the author and designer of Doorposts,
Messiah, Portraits of the Word, and The Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, Botts Illustrated
Edition. Tim's rendering of Deuteronomy 6:6-9 is part
of the permanent collection of the Newberry
Library in Chicago. He is also actively involved
with Masterpiece Ministries, which mentors high
school students in the arts. [The One Year Bible
Live Verse Devotional]
ONE LINERS
Only love for the Lord will move anyone to
truly follow Him. [Victor Bible Readers
Companion]
Let this point be fully settled in every
mind: If we accept Christ as a Redeemer we must
accept Him as a Ruler. We cannot have the
assurance, the perfect, confiding trust in Christ as
our Saviour, until we acknowledge Him and are
obedient to His commandments. {TMK 293}
Love to Christ cannot exist without
corresponding love to those whom He came into the world to
redeem. 3T396
CLOSING THOUGHTS
From Alienation to Reconciliation
Separation, rejection, and alienation are
unpleasant experiences that we usually try to avoid at
all costs. But we live in a fallen world, so we
cannot totally escape them.
Isolation from other people is bad
enough, but what's worse is that many individuals
live apart from the heavenly Father. How tragic
and futile life must be when it is spent
completely detached from its Creator. God planted
within each of us a desire to be in relationship
with Him, so until we find our connection to Him,
we will always feel that something is missing.
And yet as crucial as that relationship
is to our well-being, something stands in its
way: Whether by our thoughts or actions, we have
all violated the Lord's commands (Rom. 3:23),
and our pure, holy God cannot be in the presence
of sin. Romans 6:23 states that the penalty for
sin is death, which is an eternal separation
from the Lord. Therefore, we will always have a
void.
What a bleak outlook for mankind! But our
loving Father solved the dilemma by sending His Son
to pay our penalty. Fully God and fully man,
Jesus lived the perfect life, took all our
iniquity upon Himself, and died a gruesome death on
the cross. No longer are we condemned for our
wrongs, because Christ took our place. And three
days later, He victoriously rose to life.
Salvation is available to anyone who
believes and receives this remarkable gift. John 3:16
describes how reconciliation puts an end to our
alienation: "For God so loved the world, that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in
Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
[In Touch Daily Devotional by Charles Stanley at
www.intouch.org]
The Ultimate Friend
When I go Christmas shopping for my wife,
I dont do it out of a sense of obligation.
I enjoy it. I dont do it because Im
afraid of how she will respond if I dont get her
a gift. Im not motivated by fear; Im
motivated by love.
When you love someone, you naturally want
to do things that you know will please them.
The same is true of our relationship with
Christ. True friends of Jesus obey Him because they
want to, because they love Him.
The apostle Paul wrote, Christs
love controls us. Since we believe that Christ
died for all, we also believe that we have all
died to our old life (2 Corinthians 5:14
NLT).
When we love the Lord, it is our delight,
our privilege, to do what He commands.
People are bound to disappoint us, to let
us down. But we have a friend to whom we can
tell our secrets because He will never betray our
confidence. We have a friend who will also share His
secrets with us. We have the ultimate friend in
Jesus Christ.
Not only does Jesus want to be our Savior
and Lord, but He also wants to be our friend.
If you are not the friend of God, then
you are His enemy. The Bible says that if you
love the ways of the world, then youre Gods
enemy. In fact, Jesus said, Anyone who isnt
with me opposes me, and anyone who isnt
working with me is actually working against me
(Matthew 12:30 NLT).
Maybe youve never known how its
like to have a living, daily, continuous
relationship"even friendship"with Jesus Christ. Maybe you
hadnt realized that such a thing was even
possible.
Jesus is a friend who will stand by you
no matter what. And Hes willing to come into
your life, forgive your sins, and extend His
friendship to you. But you must respond. [Greg Laurie
from Harvest Ministries;
https://www.harvestdaily.com]
LINK FOR FURTHER STUDY
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 - Love & Living for
Christ.
http://www.abible.com/devotions/2005/20050527-0651.html
LINKS WORTH CHECKING OUT
https://abible.com/links/
