Daily Devotion – March 22, 2022 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison

2 Corinthians 5:16-21
5:16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.
5:17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
5:18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;
5:19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
5:20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

“Look at it this way,…”

Don’t you hate it when you are all sure of something – maybe how badly someone has treated you or someone you love, and you tell a friend, and that friend says this to you: “Well, look at it this way…

It is so irritating. We know we don’t have all the answers or all the points of view we need. But to have someone come right out and tell you the point of view to have?

The Apostle Paul knew the Corinthians very well. They, perhaps above any other church Paul served, thought they had all the answers. Paul’s main job, as their pastor and apostle, was to get them to look at things from a different perspective. And they resisted his efforts. But Paul was patient and persistent.

In this passage he is telling them to see the bigger picture, to look at things no longer from a human perspective but instead from a godly one. When Christ enters our life, when we have been baptized into his death and his resurrection, we are a new creation. In some ways that makes us automatically a better person. But in some ways we have a new awareness we must never lose sight of: Just exactly as we have been beloved by God enough to have been saved by Jesus’s death and resurrection, so ALL PEOPLE have been so loved by God.  Verse 19 says that Jesus Christ in God was reconciling the world to himself. THE WORLD. Not “everybody on 6th street south.” Not “all the Lutherans in North Dakota.”

THE WORLD.

We are to regard all people as beloved children of God. Everything has become new because of Jesus’s work.

So, much as we resent being told how to look at things, especially in the midst of a conflict or even a dispute over our back fence, we must think of each human being as a beloved child of God. Darn it.

Try it and see what happens when we really do try on that notion, even for a moment. Hmmm.

Gracious Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Help us in our efforts to see every person as your beloved child, no matter what. Show us each day why that is so important.   Amen.