2 Corinthians 3:1-6

                                                                         2 Corinthians 3:1-6

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you?  You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.  And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.  Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.  Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Anything of high value is in danger of being imitated and falsified.  The ministry of the Gospel is of extremely high value.  Those who are responsible to identify forged currency do not study forgeries; they study the genuine currency so that anything other than what is genuine will be immediately recognized.  Paul gives us at least two marks of genuine ministry.

 

GENUINE MINISTRY CHANGES LIVES: Paul states that the very lives of the believers in Corinth were the ultimate proof of genuine ministry.  They had been a sinful and pagan society that was now walking with the Lord and exercising discipline within the body of believers.  The lives of the believers had been radically transformed through Paul’s time of ministry there.  All who looked at the life of the church there and compared it to their lives prior to Paul’s ministry would be impacted by the changed they observed.  The ministry is all about conforming people to the image of Christ.  Effective ministry should be judged according to that criterion.

 

GENUINE MINISTRY COMES FROM GOD: Ministry is not accomplished because of the abilities of men or for the glory of men.  Genuine ministry is empowered by the Holy Spirit.  No minister of the Gospel as the power to transform lives.  However, those who are called into ministry by God will be used by Him as instruments of transformation in the lives of others.  Genuine ministry is not simply the promotion of changed behavior.  True ministry is marked by the power of the Spirit being evident in the lives of men.

 

APPLICATION: Seek to minister in the lives of people to bring them into closer conformity with Christ.  Depend on the Spirit of God to work in and through us to change people’s lives from the inside out.  Don’t be satisfied with external behaviors.  Seek for internal conformity with Christ.

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