What does the love of Christ do...

"The love of Christ _________ us."

How might you fill in the blank with a word?

Various translations of 2 Corinthians 5:14 offer various words.

LIVING BIBLE and ESV and RSV - "controls."
AMPLIFIED BIBLE - "controls and urges and impels"
GOOD NEWS TRANSLATION/CEV - "rules"
NIV - "compels"
GOD'S WORD TRANSLATION - "guides"
WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE - "constrains"

What does the love of Christ do to you?

THE LOVE OF CHRIST

Of course, the phrase can be understood in two ways.  Is the "love of Christ" His love for me?  Or is the "love of Christ" my love for Him?  What did Paul mean when he wrote this phrase?  How are we to understand it?  Greek grammarians would say it's the difference between an "objective genitive" (His love for me) and a "subjective genitive" (my love for Him).  The context should lean you to one or the other.

In the context of 2 Corinthians 5, it is likely the former.  Jesus' love for us -- more particularly -- Jesus love for me, for you, has a clear impact on the way the one loved lives.  Jesus' love for me "controls, urges, impels, rules, guides, constrains" me in a certain way.  The rest of the verses (5:15-21) explains.

Paul writes he is compelled, constrained, guided and urged by Jesus's self-sacrificing love for everyone and every one TO BE God's ambassador.  To be someone who communicates for God (God making His appeal through us) to men and women, girls and boys, that they be reconciled to God.

Jesus' love makes us beggars.  We beg people to receive God's love and forgiveness.  We beg people to understand that God "poured our sins" into Jesus, so that he could "pour Jesus' righteousness" into us (5:21, Living Bible).

Our men's group this morning was checked up by this applicational question:  With how many people in 2013 did you plead with to be reconciled to God?  And how many in 2014 will hear God pleading through us to this end?

What does the love of Christ do to you?  Or should I say "through" me, and you?