Part 4

005:003 if indeed having really put on a robe we shall not be found to be unclothed.

005:004 Yes, we who are in this tent certainly do sigh under our burdens, for we do not wish to lay aside that with which we are now clothed, but to put on more, so that our mortality may be absorbed in Life.

005:005 And He who formed us with this very end in view is God, who has given us His Spirit as a pledge and foretaste of that bliss.

005:006 We have therefore a cheerful confidence. We know that while we are at home in the body we are banished from the Lord;

005:007 for we are living a life of faith, and not one of sight.

005:008 So we have a cheerful confidence, and we anticipate with greater delight being banished from the body and going home to the Lord.

005:009 And for this reason also we make it our ambition, whether at home or in exile, to please Him perfectly.

005:010 For we must all of us appear before Christ's judgement-seat in our true characters, in order that each may then receive an award for his actions in this life, in accordance with what he has done, whether it be good or whether it be worthless.

005:011 Therefore, because we realize how greatly the Lord is to be feared, we are endeavouring to win men over, and God recognizes what our motives are, and I hope that you, in your hearts, recognize them too.

005:012 We are not again commending ourselves to your favour, but are furnishing you with a ground of boasting on our behalf, so that you may have a reply ready for those with whom superficial appearances are everything and sincerity of heart counts for nothing.

005:013 For if we have been beside ourselves, it has been for God's glory; or if we are now in our right senses, it is in order to be of service to you.

005:014 For the love of Christ overmasters us, the conclusion at which we have arrived being this--that One having died for all, His death was their death,

005:015 and that He died for all in order that the living may no longer live to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again.

005:016 Therefore for the future we know no one simply as a man. Even if we have known Christ as a man, yet now we do so no longer.

005:017 So that if any one is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old state of things has passed away; a new state of things has come into existence.

005:018 And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and has appointed us to serve in the ministry of reconciliation.

005:019 We are to tell how God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not charging men's transgressions to their account, and that He has entrusted to us the Message of this reconciliation.

005:020 On Christ's behalf therefore we come as ambassadors, God, as it were, making entreaty through our lips: we, on Christ's behalf, beseech men to be reconciled to God.

005:021 He has made Him who knew nothing of sin to be sin for us, in order that in Him we may become the righteousness of God.

006:001 And you also we, as God's fellow workers, entreat not to be found to have received His grace to no purpose.

006:002 For He says, "At a time of welcome I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have succoured you." Now is the time of loving welcome! Now is the day of salvation!

006:003 We endeavour to give people no cause for stumbling in anything, lest the work we are doing should fall into discredit.

006:004 On the contrary, as God's servants, we seek their full approval-- by unwearied endurance, by afflictions, by distress, by helplessness;

006:005 by floggings, by imprisonments; by facing riots, by toil, by sleepless watching, by hunger and thirst;

006:006 by purity of life, by knowledge, by patience, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love;

006:007 by the proclamation of the truth, by the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness, wielded in both hands;

006:008 through honour and ignominy, through calumny and praise. We are looked upon as impostors and yet are true men;

006:009 as obscure persons, and yet are well known; as on the point of death, and yet, strange to tell, we live; as under God's discipline, and yet we are not deprived of life;