2 Corinthians 5:11-21 - Controlled By The Love Of Christ

¹¹ It is with this knowledge of what the fear of the Lord means that I appeal to men. My true character is perfectly plain to God, and I hope to your consciences too. ¹² I am not trying to recommend myself to you again. I am giving you cause to be proud of me, to use in answering men who pride themselves on external advantages and not on sincerity of heart. ¹³ For if I was out of my senses, as they say, it was between God and me; and if I am in my right mind, it is for your good. ¹⁴ It is Christ's love that controls me, for I have become convinced that as one has died for all, all have died, ¹⁵ and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.

¹⁶ So from that time on, I have estimated nobody at what he seemed to be outwardly; even though I once estimated Christ in that way, I no longer do so. ¹⁷ So if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new being; the old state of things has passed away; there is a new state of things. ¹⁸ All this comes from God, who through Christ has reconciled me to himself, and has commissioned me to proclaim this reconciliation??19 how God through Christ reconciled the world to himself, refusing to count men's offenses against them, and intrusted me with the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ It is for Christ, therefore, that I am an envoy, seeing that God makes his appeal through me. On Christ's behalf I beg you to be reconciled to God. ²¹ He made him who knew nothing of sin to be sin, for our sake, so that through union with him we might become God's uprightness.