Study Desk

All of this is for your benefit. And as God's grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.

God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too.

If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit.

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.

For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.

So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!"

For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

For God says, "At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you." Indeed, the "right time" is now. Today is the day of salvation.

In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind.

We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We are honest, but they call us impostors.

And what union can there be between God's temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said: "I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God.

But God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus.

Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way.

For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.

My purpose, then, was not to write about who did the wrong or who was wronged. I wrote to you so that in the sight of God you could see for yourselves how loyal you are to us.

Now I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God in his kindness has done through the churches in Macedonia.

They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do.