By Faith

 DEVOTION

THE 2^ND LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

BY FAITH

2 Cor 1:18-24

18 But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No." 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." 20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. 21 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 23 I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth. 24 Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.

NIV

God’s promises are always yes! That is extremely encouraging in a world that has so many mixed messages of “Yes” and “No”. There is no question in our minds and hearts that His message regarding Christ is an absolute “Yes”. Jesus is the only provision for our salvation, and it is only by faith that we can accept Jesus, and conversely, God accepts us. Until we accepted Jesus by faith, we were objects of wrath, unaccepted by God, an enemy of God, so to speak. But through faith in Jesus Christ God reconciled himself to us and us to him and now we have the right to be called children of God. We are in the family of God in Christ Jesus. He has said “Yes” to us and has promised us eternal life. However, we cannot be confused about the fact that we have anything to do with it other than through faith in Jesus. According to what Paul says here, we cannot even stand firm on our own. It is through his anointing that he makes us stand firm. It reminds us of how many times and ways He tells us to stand our ground, to take our stand as He clothes us in His armor. It is His armor that causes us to stand firm, and here Paul says that we can only stand firm because of His seal of ownership on us and that He put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Of course, we have a response to God, and many would say our response is doing “good works”. But again, we are reminded of the question asked of Jesus, as to what are the works that God requires us to do and Jesus said that the work of God is to believe in the one he sent. So often we can get confused about this doing “good deeds” and thinking that is what makes us a “Good Christian”. But the fact remains, we have nothing to do with our ability to stand firm or to do anything good. It is all God, all the work of the Spirit within us, for it is His gifts, His fruit, His seal upon our heart that is the reason we can stand firm, He makes us stand firm, not us, and it is that simple. So let us not boast about ourselves in any way but let us boast in Christ. For it is by faith we stand firm.