It was time to fix the trim on the windows of our house. So I scraped, sanded, and applied wood filler to get the aging trim ready for paint. After all of my effortsâincluding a coat of primer and some too-expensive paintâthe trim looks, well, pretty good. But it doesnât look new. The only way to make the trim look new would be to replace the old wood.
Itâs okay to have weather-damaged window trim that looks âpretty goodâ to our eye. But when it comes to our sin-damaged hearts, itâs not enough to try to fix things up. From Godâs point of view, we need all things to become new (2 Cor. 5:17).
That is the beauty of salvation through faith in Jesus. He died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin and rose from the dead to display His power over sin and death. The result is that in Godâs eyes, faith in Christâs work makes us a ânew creationâ (2 Cor. 5:17) and replaces the old with a ânew lifeâ (Acts 5:20). Looking through Jesus and His work on the cross for us, our heavenly Father sees everyone who has put his or her faith in Him as new and unblemished.
Sin has caused great damage. We canât fix it ourselves. We must trust Jesus as Savior and let Him give us a brand-new life.
Paul, the author of 2 Corinthians, had founded the church at Corinth during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:1-17) and spent 18 months there in ministry. This was a church that was struggling with a number of problems. Paul had addressed many of those problems in his first letter to them (1 Cor.). Now, some within the assemblyâegged on by false apostlesâwere attacking his authority as an apostle. This letter was written to defend his apostleship and to provide a level of pastoral correction to the continuing problems at Corinth. His defense is most clearly seen in his transparent record of his own suffering for the message of the cross (2 Cor. 11:16â12:10). Bill Crowder