I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Corinthians 5-8.

    Paul tells us that we are Christ’s ambassadors in this world. An ambassador is someone sent on behalf of a sovereign to deliver that sovereign’s message to those who do not currently accept that sovereign’s rule. I want to bring up two important elements of an ambassador’s role. The first is that the ambassador is obligated by his sovereign to always act and speak in ways which bring honor to that sovereign. The second is that the sovereign will view anything said or done to the ambassador as if it was said or done to himself. So, as ambassador’s of Christ we are obligated to carefully consider ALL of our actions and words to determine if they bring honor and glory to Christ. And, when our actions do this, than anything which anyone says or does to us is directed at Christ, not us, and God will respond to it accordingly.

    While Paul is explaining what it means to be ambassadors for Christ he writes some great lessons for us. We should act to bring glory to God even if that causes people to think we are crazy. Actually, the way I read it, if our actions are bringing glory to God there will be a large number of people who think we are crazy. However, there are times when we need to explain our actions and show people that we are not crazy. We do not do this for our benefit. Rather we do it for those to whom we are speaking. God has reconciled us to Himself. He has given us the task of showing other people how they can be reconciled to God. In order for them to accept this message they must see that we are not crazy. They must see that our actions which appear crazy are the logical consequence of the new people into whom Christ has transformed us. We no longer live for ourselves. Instead we live for Christ and our lives should reflect both the responsibility this entails and the joy that results from doing so..