Through the Bible – Day 251

₅I don't want to be hard on you. But if one of you has made someone feel bad, I am not really the one who has been made to feel bad. Some of you are the ones. ₆Most of you have already pointed out the wrong that person did, and that is punishment enough for what was done.

₇When people sin, you should forgive and comfort them, so they won't give up in despair. ₈You should make them sure of your love for them.

₉I also wrote because I wanted to test you and find out if you would follow my instructions. ₁₀I will forgive anyone you forgive. Yes, for your sake and with Christ as my witness, I have forgiven whatever needed to be forgiven. ₁₁I have done this to keep Satan from getting the better of us. We all know what goes on in his mind.

₁₂When I went to Troas to preach the good news about Christ, I found that the Lord had already prepared the way. ₁₃But I was worried when I didn't find my friend Titus there. So I left the other followers and went on to Macedonia.

₁₄I am grateful that God always makes it possible for Christ to lead us to victory. God also helps us spread the knowledge about Christ everywhere, and this knowledge is like the smell of perfume. _15-16In fact, God thinks of us as a perfume that brings Christ to everyone. For people who are being saved, this perfume has a sweet smell and leads them to a better life. But for people who are lost, it has a bad smell and leads them to a horrible death.

No one really has what it takes to do this work. ₁₇A lot of people try to get rich from preaching God's message. But we are God's sincere messengers, and by the power of Christ we speak our message with God as our witness.

₁Are we once again boasting about ourselves? Do we need letters to you or from you to tell others about us? Some people do need letters that tell about them. ₂But you are our letter, and you are in our hearts for everyone to read and understand. ₃You are like a letter written by Christ and delivered by us. But you are not written with pen and ink or on tablets made of stone. You are written in our hearts by the Spirit of the living God.

₄We are sure about all this. Christ makes us sure in the very presence of God. ₅We don't have the right to claim that we have done anything on our own. God gives us what it takes to do all that we do. ₆He makes us worthy to be the servants of his new agreement that comes from the Holy Spirit and not from a written Law. After all, the Law brings death, but the Spirit brings life.

₇The Law of Moses brought only the promise of death, even though it was carved on stones and given in a wonderful way. Still the Law made Moses' face shine so brightly that the people of Israel could not look at it, even though it was a fading glory. ₈So won't the agreement that the Spirit brings to us be even more wonderful? ₉If something that brings the death sentence is glorious, won't something that makes us acceptable to God be even more glorious? ₁₀In fact, the new agreement is so wonderful that the Law is no longer glorious at all. ₁₁The Law was given with a glory that faded away. But the glory of the new agreement is much greater, because it will never fade away.

₁₂This wonderful hope makes us feel like speaking freely. ₁₃We are not like Moses. His face was shining, but he covered it to keep the people of Israel from seeing the brightness fade away. ₁₄The people were stubborn, and something still keeps them from seeing the truth when the Law is read. Only Christ can take away the covering that keeps them from seeing.

₁₅When the Law of Moses is read, they have their minds covered over ₁₆with a covering that is removed only for those who turn to the Lord. ₁₇The Lord and the Spirit are one and the same, and the Lord's Spirit sets us free. ₁₈So our faces are not covered. They show the bright glory of the Lord, as the Lord's Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord.