God 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.So 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!Christ 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.
So get rid of every kind of evil, and stop telling lies. Don’t pretend to be something you are not. Stop wanting what others have, and don’t speak against one another.Like newborn babies, you should long for the pure milk of God’s word. It will help you grow up as believers.
They do it instead of bringing the animal to the entrance to the tent of meeting. They sacrifice it instead of giving it as an offering to me in front of my holy tent. Then they will be thought of as guilty of spilling blood. Because they have done that, they must be separated from their people.
Here is what we take pride in. Our sense of what is right and wrong tells us how we have acted. We have lived with honor and godly honesty. We have depended on God’s grace and not on the world’s wisdom. We lived that way most of all when we were dealing with you.
