Transformed – teen devotion – January 21, 2024
One truth shared: Jesus gives us the truth of the Gospel to not keep to ourselves, but rather share with others.
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:14-21
Committed to a Lofty Charge
What is the best news you’ve ever received? Maybe you passed a class you thought you might have failed. Maybe you received a scholarship of some kind to college? Maybe, just maybe, Mom and Dad shared great news of a new baby in the family, a vacation of a lifetime, or plans to move to a nicer house.
Great news causes us joy. It also causes us to want to share it with others. We read in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians that Christ’s love for us “compels us”! It changes our priorities. It clarifies our focus. It gives us purpose in this life—not only to rejoice in Jesus our Epiphany Savior but to share him with others.
Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden brought about devastating consequences: some of them immediate; all of them deadly. Only Christ Jesus can undo the pain and consequence that sin brings. And he did just that through his death on the cross and victory over the grave. Christ’s victory is our victory.
What a joy, then, we have to serve as his “ambassadors,” joining in the work of sharing Jesus with this world, announcing the good news of salvation by grace alone, and basking in the timeless truth that “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (verse 21).
Teenagers are often told in life to “be quiet” or “settle down” when it comes to expressing their excitement over something. Not this good news of Jesus, though, fellow ambassadors. Share it! Loudly! Proudly! Never keep the “best news ever” that burns in your heart to yourself. Proclaim it to friends and family and everyone in between. Jesus is our Savior and our Lord. Pass it on!
Prayer: This Epiphany season, dear Lord, your Son is revealed to us as the Lord of all things and the Savior of the entire world. Work this truth deeply into my heart that I may share it with those near and far. Amen.
