Some verses in the Bible are so rich that they warrant special attention. II Corinthians 13:11 is one of those verses. Here Paul is closing out his second letter to the Corinthian church:
Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.
~II Corinthians 13:11
In just a few, short sentences, Paul lays out four commands for us. He also tells us what the reward will be for our obedience. Let’s dig a bit deeper into this amazing verse.
Be joyful.
The first command in this verse is to be joyful. People often confuse joy and happiness. Happiness is a feeling that comes and goes with circumstances. Happiness is largely out of our control. Joy, on the other hand, is a choice, and it is always available to us.
Joy is deeper than happiness. It comes when we recognize that God is good, that He is in control, and that His love for us knows no bounds.
Joy comes from having a proper perspective: realizing that our time on this earth, and all that we experience here, is just a blip on the scale of eternity.
Joy comes when we believe the promises of God: that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord (Romans 8:28), and that one day we will enjoy eternal life with Him in a restored creation.
We lose our joy when we focus on the wrong things. When we doubt the promises of God. When we lean on our own understanding.
The Bible tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). If you feel weak and find your joy waning, check your focus! Put it back on God, and your joy and strength will be restored.
Grow to maturity.
Many Christians live in a state of spiritual infancy. They ask God for forgiveness, they go to church once in a while, but otherwise they go about their lives in much the same way the unsaved do.
Paul talks about this in I Corinthians:
Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ.
I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready,
for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?
~I Corinthians 3:1-3
So how does one progress from spiritual infancy to maturity? Paul uses the analogy of a baby transitioning from milk to solid food, clueing us in that maturity is a process. This process involves studying the Bible, grasping everything that you can, and continually coming back to what you don’t understand. Over time, with the help of the Holy Spirit, things become clearer. With diligence and perseverance, you begin to grow.
To grow spiritually, do three things every day: read, pray, obey.
Read the Bible and ask God to help you understand what you’re reading.
Pray for wisdom, trusting that God will give it to you.
Obey immediately and completely when God reveals a command from His Word that you’re not currently obeying.
If you do these three things every day, you will grow in Christ.
Encourage each other.
The late Robin Williams once said, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” Boy is that true! Everyone struggles privately, every day, wrestling with demons that no one else sees. This is why encouragement is so powerful and so necessary.
There are many ways to be an encouragement to others. One simple way is just to offer a kind word.
Kind words are like honey- sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.
~Proverbs 16:24
You can also encourage others by helping them in tangible ways, like bringing them a meal when they are sick, or offering to watch their kids when they need a break.
You can encourage others by telling them how much you appreciate them, by pointing out the qualities in them that you admire.
Your encouragement may be exactly what that person needs. It might be the thing God uses to spur that person on to great things.
And when we start encouraging others, something unexpected happens: we get a shot of encouragement ourselves! There is a blessing for both the giver and the receiver.
So if you need encouragement, don’t wait around for someone to give it to you. Instead, go out and encourage others. You’ll find that you get the encouragement you need in return.
Live in harmony and peace.
The fourth and final command in II Corinthians 13:11 is to live in harmony and peace. There are at least two major obstacles to living out this command: quarreling and grudges.
Here’s the dictionary definition of a quarrel: a heated argument or disagreement, typically about a trivial issue and between people who are usually on good terms.
Nothing damages harmony and peace like quarreling. Are you someone who has to be right about everything? Do you argue over petty details? Do you insist that others agree with your opinions? If so, you might have a problem in this area.
If you want peace, learn to disagree without being disagreeable. Learn to listen more and talk less. II Timothy 2:24 puts it this way:
A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people.
~II Timothy 2:24
The second thing that wrecks peace and harmony is grudges. When people wrong us, our sin nature wells up with anger. It wants to see the other person pay for what they did. It wants them to feel the hurt we feel.
When we’re in that state of mind, we don’t even want to look at that person, let alone talk to them or fellowship with them. And the longer we hold onto that grudge, the worse it gets. Nothing good ever comes of it. The grudge is toxic, both to the relationship and to the individual who holds onto it.
Because we live in a fallen world filled with broken people, it’s inevitable that others will hurt us at times, and that we will hurt others. But rather than hold grudges, Christians are called to forgive.
Even when someone harms us intentionally, we are called to forgive. In those instances, Christ tells us to “turn the other cheek” (Mathew 5:39).
We must remember how much God has forgiven us, and extend forgiveness to others, whether they ask for it or not, and whether we think they deserve it or not.
Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.
Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
~Ephesians 4:31-32
So don’t quarrel. Let go of those grudges. This is the way to live in peace and harmony.
The payoff.
We’ve looked at the four commands in II Corinthians 13:11 (Be joyful, grow to maturity, encourage each other, and live in harmony and peace). Now we turn our attention to the final sentence of the verse, which begins with the word “then.” In other words, after you have obeyed these commands, then you will receive the promise. And that promise is:
Then the God of love and peace will be with you.
Here we have to let scripture interpret scripture. It is clear from many other passages of scripture that God is always with us (see Psalm 139, Psalm 16:8, Hebrews 13:5, Mathew 28:20, Isaiah 41:10, and many other passages). So this can’t mean that God is only with us after we obey these four commands.
What it is saying is that when we don’t obey these commands, we miss out on the love and peace that God has for us.
And of course that makes sense. How can we possibly feel God’s love and peace when we are not joyful, when we are not growing, when we are not encouraging others, and when we are not living in peace and harmony with each other? We can’t! On the flip side, God’s peace and love flows to us as a natural consequence of obedience to these commands.
I hope you enjoyed diving into this verse as much as I did. I’m personally challenged to do better in these four areas so that I can experience more of the love and peace of God. How about you?
