What we are is plain to God. I hope it is also plain to your way of thinking. ¹²We are not trying to make an appeal to you again. But we are giving you a chance to take pride in us. Then you can answer those who take pride in how people look rather than in what is really in their hearts.

¹³Are we out of our minds? That is because we want to serve God. Does what we say make sense? That is because we want to serve you.

¹⁴Christ’s love controls us. We are sure that one person died for everyone. And so everyone died.

¹⁵Christ died for everyone. He died so that those who live should not live for themselves anymore. They should live for Christ. He died for them and was raised again.

¹⁶So from now on we don’t look at anyone the way the world does. At one time we looked at Christ in that way. But we don’t anymore.

¹⁷Anyone who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone! The new has come! ¹⁸It is all from God. He brought us back to himself through Christ’s death on the cross. And he has given us the task of bringing others back to him through Christ.

¹⁹God was bringing the world back to himself through Christ. He did not hold people’s sins against them. God has trusted us with the message that people may be brought back to him. ²⁰So we are Christ’s official messengers. It is as if God were making his appeal through us. Here is what Christ wants us to beg you to do. Come back to God!

²¹Christ didn’t have any sin. But God made him become sin for us. So we can be made right with God because of what Christ has done for us.

Read in Logos

2 Corinthians 5:14: For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died…