Pep Rally at Four, Game at Five

2 Corinthians 4-5

In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he was pretty harsh. Now he wants to make sure they move past the issues of sin into a real relationship with God. Chapter 4 sort of serves as his pep rally. He is encouraging all of his audience (Hebrew, Greek and Roman) to push forward... For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light (Hebrews) of the knowledge (Greek) of the glory (Roman) of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He desires that all humanity come together against the adversity in the world, for... we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. He does not want the Corinthians to get bogged down by temporal failure... Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. So... go out there and get them.

Leading right into the heart of the matter... the game if you will... in Chapter 5. But this is no game in the sense of "maybe it would be fun if we..." rather it is a game in the sense that it is the reason we have entered the arena... our purpose for being.  If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! ... Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That WE might become the righteousness of God! Now! Not later when we get to heaven, but that we might be transformed into something different right now... something that God had intended for us to be all along, but we wanted to do it our way. If we insist on waiting for later, it is not transformation... not a new creation, just the same old creature with the same sin problem. We don't need a savior to be the same people in bondage. We need the savior to free us from what we were, so that we can be something different. Get in the game.