2 Corinthians 3:4-6 “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." This episode is about how god is calling us into action and why we should accept the call. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Sprinkle Love Like Confetti
2 Corinthians 3:4-6 “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
I liked this verse when I read it for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that it says “such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.” I liked the phrasing of it. The verse is saying that they have confidence toward God through Christ. They are acknowledging that Christ is the reason the have confidence in God. It is through Him that all things are possible. I like this because it means that all the responsibility for trusting God is not on my shoulders. If I ask, Christ will help me with my confidence towards God.
The next line says, “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God.” I like this because again, it takes some of the responsibility off of us to have to know how to do it all and to be good everything. If God asks us to do something then He will give us all we need to do it. This is sometimes hard to believe. Imagine God asks you to build an orphanage in a foreign country. One where you have never been before. It is difficult to say yes to this when you have no idea how any of the pieces will come together. Maybe you don’t even know how to build anything, and you are not a fan of travel. Maybe you don’t have any money and you don’t have the first clue how to do fundraising. It would be hard to step into this calling when you don’t have any answers. And yet, some people do.
God asked Noah to build an arc. He asked him to build in arc in the middle of a drought. Noah had no idea how to build an arc, he was a farmer. Noah had never built an arc before. I don’t think that Noah had all the supplies to build the arc before he said yes to the Lord. God asked Noah to build an arc, with very specific dimensions and Noah said yes. He said yes, not because he knew what he was doing, and not because he had all the answers. He said yes because he loved God and God asked him to. He said yes and relied on the Lord to give him what he would need to complete the project.
I wish we all had this kind of trust in the Lord. I wish that when God asked us to do something, we all just said yes. We didn’t think about it, we didn’t weigh the pros and the cons, we didn’t worry about whether we were good enough or not. I wish we just said yes. If God wanted to erase everyone except Noah off the face of the earth then it seems like the world was in a pretty bad place. The world is in a pretty bad place right now. It seems as though you can be anything you want today except for Christian. You have to be tolerant of everyone else’s beliefs, but no one has to be tolerant of the Christian beliefs. Don’t get me wrong, I think that we should be tolerant of other people’s beliefs. I just expect that same respect and it doesn’t seem to be happening these days. I believe that God is calling us all to action. I believe He wants us to spread the gospel, to live His word every day.
This brings me to the next line in this verse, “our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant.” God made the apostles competent ministers of the new covenant. He will do the same for us. If we just say yes, he will equip us with the knowledge and power that we need to spread the good news. If you are anything like me you shrink away from the responsibility to spread the good news. You think to yourself, “Who am I to talk about God, what do I know?” or you say “There are others much better suited to talk about Jesus. Others that have studied harder or paid attention more.” There are any number of things we tell ourselves to convince us that God maybe calling some people, but He isn’t calling me. I am not worthy to serve the Lord. I am not good enough, smart enough, educated enough, or whatever your version of “not enough” is.
This is the enemy talking! He has convinced us that we aren’t enough and so God couldn’t possible use us. All the proof you need to know this isn’t true can be found in the Bible. God never used the most educated men, the most holy people, the people that got everything right. He used normal, everyday people to be his instruments in the world and He wants to use you. Do not believe the enemy that you are not enough. Are you worthy? No, none of us are worthy and yet God loves us and wants to use us anyway. God made us in His likeness and image, so we can’t be all that bad.
The last part of this verse is a really important part. It is one that I find really interesting and want to dive deeper into. I will just touch on it today to draw your attention to it and then if you want to dive deeper to understand it better you can do that. The last part of this verse says, “who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” This talk of a new covenant is what I would like to dive deeper into. The things I found regarding this particular scripture say that the letter of the law is the mosaic law. Before Paul was converted he used to enforce the laws of the old covenant. The reason this verse says that the letter kills is because it is impossible for us to follow all the laws on our own. We are a sinful people and we can’t live a life without sin without the Holy Spirit. When Paul teaches the new covenant he teaches those who trust in Jesus to live by the Holy Spirit.
I think this is where many of us go wrong. We want to help everyone find Jesus and we have noble intentions. However, we go about it by preaching the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law. Instead of starting out letting everyone know how much they are loved by our heavenly father, we tell them that they are living in sin if they live with someone they aren’t married too. Instead of loving people right where they are at, and trusting the Holy Spirit to convict them of any wrong doing, we judge them and treat them according to how we feel they should be treated. The Holy Spirit has really convicted me over the years that Jesus is love and that He wants me to be an example of that love to all that I meet. I fall short and I don’t always do this, however, I never stop trying and I know that when I do fail, God forgives me and then he gives me the grace I need to do better next time.
If we truly want to help people find their way to Jesus then we need to be a reflection of Jesus to all we meet. When Jesus ate with the tax collectors and the prostitutes, he did not lecture them about what they were doing and how they needed to change. He just loved them right where they were at and they saw a love and a peace in Him that they wanted. Our words will not be the thing that changes people, our actions will. It seems like people are starving for love and connection these days. This may sound weird because with social media, it seems like everyone has so many more friends. However, it is rare to get true connection with others online. There is definitely a shortage of love these days. Even with all these ways to communicate people are feeling more alone than ever. What if we spread love around to everyone we meet? I heard this saying and I love it. I think if we all made it our goal for 2022, we would be better people at the end of the year and the world around us would be that much better. I will leave you with this quote, “Sprinkle love like confetti.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to love you and to have confidence in you. Lord, help us to say yes to whatever it is you are calling us to, even if we don’t understand how or why you are calling us to it. Help us to say yes, even if we don’t have any of the answers we think we need. Please give us the grace to trust You and rely on You for all we will need to carry out the mission you give us. We want to be competent ministers of the new covenant. Help us to lead by example and to teach the spirit of the law instead of focusing on the letter of the law. We love you so much Lord, help us sprinkle that love like confetti to all those we come in contact with. Thank you so much for all you do for us. You are truly spectacular and we are so grateful. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!