2 Corinthians 3:4-6

We love because He first loved us!

“This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).

A divine spark indwells you. When you say yes to God he blows on that holy ember, and it begins to flame. It grows day by day within you. Are you perfect? No. But you are being made perfect. And he has a wild and inexplicable love for you. You are God’s idea, God’s child.

You were loved in heaven before you were known on earth. You aren’t an accident. You are being made into God’s image. You are a diamond, a rose, and a jewel, purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. In the eyes of God you are worth dying for. Would you let this truth find its way into your heart? Max Lucado

2 Corinthians 3:4-6

4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. The New King James Version

The Greek word for trust means “confidence”. Paul was convinced that Christ would make his ministry effective. Sufficient means “adequate,” or “competent.” Paul placed his confidence not in himself or his own abilities but in the Lord.

The letter is a reference to the old covenant—that is, the Ten Commandments written on stone. The letter kills because all break the law, and the penalty is death. The NKJV Study Bible

Paul points to God as the source of his qualifications; his confidence does not come from his own abilities, but from the power of God. 

The letter kills is a reference to the law of Moses. The law does not justify people; it only identifies sin and condemns. Instead, people are justified by faith. Faithlife Study Bible

Nothing is more delightful to faithful ministers, or more to their praise, than the success of their ministry, as shown in the spirits and lives of those among whom they labour. The law of Christ was written in their hearts, and the love of Christ shed abroad there. Their hearts were humbled and softened to receive this impression, by the new-creating power of the Holy Spirit.

And remember, as our whole dependence is upon the Lord, so the whole glory belongs to him alone. 

The letter killeth: the letter of the law is the ministration of death; and if we rest only in the letter of the gospel, we shall not be the better for so doing: but the Holy Spirit gives life spiritual, and life eternal. The law made known sin, and the wrath and curse of God; it showed us a God above us, and a God against us; but the gospel makes known grace, and Emmanuel, God with us. Therein the righteousness of God by faith is revealed; and this shows us that the just shall live by his faith; this makes known the grace and mercy of God through Jesus Christ, for obtaining the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The gospel so much exceeds the law in glory, that it eclipses the glory of the legal dispensation. But even the New Testament will be a killing letter, if shown as a mere system or form, and without dependence on God the Holy Spirit, to give it a quickening power. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

Jeremiah 31:31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—

Matthew 26:28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

Luke 22:20 Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.

John 6:63 it is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

‘Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace.”
Teach me how to order my days
that with sure touch I may say the right word at the right time
and in the right way — lest I betray the spirit of peace.
Let me not be deceived by my own insecurity and weakness
which would make me hurt another as I try desperately to help myself.
Keep watch with me, O my Father, over the days of my life,
that with abiding enthusiasm I may be in such possession of myself
that each day I may offer to Thee the full, unhampered use of me
in all my parts as “an instrument of Thy Peace.”
Amen. Howard Thurman