For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. | For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. |
For we live by believing and not by seeing. | For we walk by faith, not by sight. |
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Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. | For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. |
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! | Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. |
And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. | And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. |
For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. | To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. |
For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. | For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. |