This post by kathylarkman was originally published at GRACE PLACE
2 CORINTHIANS 5:14 NLT “Christ’s love controls (compels) us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.”
PONDER THIS:
God calls us to live lives compelled by Christ’s love; but what He calls us to do in our weakness, He then enables us to do by His grace through the Holy Spirit. What does this look like? This side of heaven, we don’t know the mechanics of it. But it happens.
But God has given us His promise:
Romans 5:5b “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”
Romans 8:26 “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
Paul wrote these words out of long and deep experience. It would be easy to imagine he was made of different stuff than us; that he found relationships easier than us because he was an apostle. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. He gives us abundant evidence that relationships could be difficult, painful, even tearful for him. But He learned that God’s grace really is sufficient, and God’s Spirit really does enable us to minister Christ’s love for one another. And He tells us again and again that God’s grace and God’s Spirit are for us too. He wants us to know that in Corsham, as in Corinth, what Christ’s love compels us to do, His grace then enables us to do.
So, we can hold together in love in ONE ANOTHERING.
