BEHOLD

 
June 21, 2020                                            BEHOLD
2 Corinthians 5:14-17 “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded that, one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Behold: “to perceive through sight or apprehension: see, to gaze upon: observe it was a pleasure.” Webster. The truth presented in this section of scripture is certainly something that we should ‘behold.’ There are times when I find myself just reading scripture, but not really beholding or contemplating what I am reading. May we not let the familiarity with the scriptures cause us to miss the impact and application of the truth of the scriptures. In the scriptures above, we discover a truth that is vital for us to behold or comprehend if we are going to live the life that God has made available to us; if we miss this point, we miss a central truth of the New Testament. A cornerstone of the scriptures is that Christ died for all; He died a cruel physical death for you and me. Not only did He die for each of us, He rose again on our behalf; death and the tomb could not contain Him. All of the scriptures, the gospel, and our faith as believers, hinges on the resurrection of Christ from the dead. His resurrection has mammoth implications: it validates the word of God; it conquerors Satan and death; it does away with the old and ushers in the new; and it is the basis on which our sins or forgiven-and so much more. Because He died and rose again on our behalf, even though we still live in a physical body, we are to no longer live for ourselves but we are to live for Him. In a very real sense, because He died to save us, we now belong to Him, not to ourselves. This is the real issue for each of us; this is the ‘fork in the road;’ we either take the road of living for ourselves, or we take the road of living for Him. Perhaps the point of the scriptures that is most often missed, or not embraced is that we-our old self-has died, and we were buried with Christ and we were raised with Him as a new person. As I often say in these blogs, God did not refurbish us, but made us new creations. It is amazing that Paul said that we are to recognize no man according to the flesh; we are now spiritual beings and we should now appraise all things and recognize others according to the Spirit. We live in a physical body and we have to deal with this physical world, but all we do should be motivated by and guided by the new person we are. When we live according to our flesh, our old self, we will experience conflict, strife, and unfullfilment. As believers, we must know that the choice is ours; we can deny our flesh, and we can choose to live according to the Spirit-according to the new person we are. As the old-timers use to say, can we get this awesome truth ‘into our thick sculls’-really our spirit. Once the fact that we have died and have been made new and that we are not our own becomes real in our spirit, our life takes on a whole new purpose with new appetites, new desires, new responses, new thought processes, and a new hope. Let the love of Christ control us and let always be beholding the truth of the scriptures and the new things that have come to us.
2 Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image as from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
Blessings,
Buddy