On Easter Sunday, Bryan and I went to Open Door Church in Hudson, Michigan. The pastor had invited a missionary friend to
preach on Resurrection morning! The
service was full of singing praises and hymns focused on the risen Savior. What a wonderful blessing!!!
The missionary preached the Resurrected Life and implored us
to live this promise everyday!!! Some of
my jotted notes include…
(v. 16) Stop seeing people as things à see them as spiritual
beings in need of Jesus.
(v. 20-21) We cannot help but be ambassadors for
Christ. It should pour out of us because
of His goodness and love and mercy extended to us. We, then, should extend those traits through
others. Not in and of our own strength…but
through Him.
5 Qualities of the Resurrected Life:
1. Motivated to live to please God
2. Live in confidence in a Savior who conquered death!!!
3. Be love-filled. Be
marked with a self-sacrificing love for others
4. A reconciled life
5. Be an ambassador.
2 Corinthians 5
For
we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a
building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan,
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
3 If so be that being
clothed we shall not be found naked. 4 For we that are in this
tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but
clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. 5 Now he that hath wrought
us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of
the Spirit. 6 Therefore we are always
confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from
the Lord: 7 (For we walk by faith, not
by sight:) 8 We are confident, I say,
and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
9 Wherefore we labour, that,
whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. 10 For we must all appear
before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done
in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. 11 Knowing therefore the
terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I
trust also are made manifest in your consciences. 12 For we commend not
ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that ye
may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance, and not in heart.
13 For whether we be beside
ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. 14 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. 16 Wherefore henceforth know
we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh,
yet now henceforth know we him no more. 17 Therefore if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things
are become new. 18 And all things are of
God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us
the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto
them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then we are
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in
Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 21 For he hath made him to
be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him.
