Thirsting Souls Bible Teaching

 (2Co 13:11) “Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.”   “Be perfect”: this word doesn’t mean, “without flaw”, but to be “thoroughly complete”.  So often we excuse ourselves thinking, “I’m still in the flesh.” True enough. Yet, if you are truly saved the Holy Spirit lives “in”  you. He desires to make us more and more like Christ Jesus.

(2Co 13:10) “Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.”   No one who loves another wishes to harm them in any way. I’ve always said the Lord did not put me into the ministry to hurt others; but to help them. Yet, there are times the only means of helping is painful. Love does what must be done.

(2Co 13:9) “For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, even your perfection.”  When one truly loves, the welfare of the other person comes before their own. Paul is saying, “My heart can except weakness, if you are strong in the Lord.”  May the Lord give us such a love for others!

(2Co 13:8) “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.”   The Holy Spirit had Paul pen this meaning, “I cannot act against the Holy Spirit’s teachings.” True service for the Lord is always about obedience to and staying faithful to truth – the revealed Word of God: (Joh_17:17) “ Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” 

(2Co 13:7) “Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates.”   “Not that we should appear approved”: in other words, “not for our sakes, but for the Lord’s.” The reputation of our Lord should be of utmost importance to each of us, causing us to live our best to bring glory and not reproach to His Name.

(2Co 13:7) “Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates.”   Truly saved individuals seek to do right (no evil), what is honest, before God. We live with the consciousness that we do so before the Lord Who we seek to love more and more. Paul is saying, “No matter what you think of us; do right before God.”

(2Co 13:6) “But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates.”  Since the proof that one is not “reprobate” is “Jesus Christ….in you” (v.5), then the evidence of such has already been given: (2Co 12:12)  “Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.”  I wonder what the sign is that Jesus Christ is in  you?

(2Co 13:5) “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”   “Reprobate”: unapproved; rejected.  It is not the prayer uttered that saves the soul. It is a response from God to the heart of the speaker (Rom 9:16). Has the heart been moved in a desire to “sin no more”? “Jesus suffered for me; I don’t want to cause that anymore.”

(2Co 13:4) “For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.”  The flesh of Christ died on a cross. The power of God raised Him. We are through that same power given spiritual life and soon – physical life. Paul would soon speak and act not a a mere man, but as a tool of that same Holy Spirit.