• We were created to have

intimacy with God.

• Trust brings intimacy.

Review

Most religious systems believe that

the basis of God’s acceptance of

you depends on your performance.

Yet our tendency as Christians is to

approach God by bringing our good

works or bad works on the table,

as if they factored into our

relationship with God.

A performance-based approach to

God severely impacts your

intimacy with God.

We underestimate the significance

of what happened on the cross.

We overestimate the significance

of our personal act of

righteousness and unrighteousness.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is

a new creation; the old has gone, the

new has come.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

All this is from you, because you

help God out in making you new. You

do good. Congratulations!

2 Corinthians 5:18 MBV

All this is from God,

2 Corinthians 5:18 NIV

All this is from God, who reconciled

us to himself through Christ…

2 Corinthians 5:18 NIV

Reconciled

• “To make compatible”

• “To fit together”

• “To agree each other”

• “To be the same”

All this is from God, who reconciled

us to himself through Christ and gave

us the ministry of reconciliation:

2 Corinthians 5:18 NIV

that God was reconciling the world to

himself in Christ, not counting men’s

sins against them.

2 Corinthians 5:19 NIV

“Not Counting”

• “To no longer calculate it”

• “To not apply it in the equation”

• “To totally remove it”

You are so reconciled to God that

your sins will never be a barrier

between you and God.

Don’t relate to God based on what

you do or do not do, but solely on

what Christ has done for you.

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.

2 Corinthians 5:20 NIV

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 5:21 NIV

“I AM THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF

GOD.”

FEW THOUGHTS

• Your sins don’t make you

unacceptable to God.

• You can take refuge in Christ when

you sin.

• The consequences of your sins need

not rob you of the intimacy with the

Father.

• You didn’t behave your way into the

relationship with God neither you

can misbehave your way out.

Why did God do all that?

Because God wants to have an

intimate relationship with you.