Saturday, February 7, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 2 Corinthians 2-3
Key Verse
2 Corinthians 3:1 — “Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?”
Devotional Thought
In the dead of winter, when the world outside is gray and the days feel long, Paul’s words to the Corinthians remind us that the Christian life is not a march of grim duty but an invitation into something fragrant and alive. Writing from Macedonia, Paul had been anxious about the church in Corinth—a congregation he loved deeply but which had caused him grief. He had written to them “out of much affliction and anguish of heart… with many tears,” not to wound them but to show them his abundant love. When a member of the church had sinned and been disciplined, Paul urged the congregation not merely to punish but to forgive and comfort him, “lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.” Here is a hard and beautiful lesson for us: the goal of correction is always restoration. Paul knew that Satan gains an advantage when bitterness is allowed to fester, whether in the one who has sinned or in the community that refuses to welcome him back.
Paul then turns to a breathtaking image. He and his companions are, he says, “unto God a sweet savour of Christ” in every place—a fragrance that brings life to some and death to others. This is not because the messenger is anything in himself. Paul asks, “Who is sufficient for these things?” and answers in the next chapter: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves… but our sufficiency is of God.” The Corinthians themselves were Paul’s living letter of recommendation, “written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”
Think of what this means for an ordinary Saturday in February. You may not feel like a letter from Christ. You may feel like a draft nobody finished, a page with smudges and crossings-out. But the Spirit writes on hearts, not on marble. The same God who made Moses’ face shine so brightly that Israel had to veil it has now poured His Spirit into us, and where that Spirit is, “there is liberty.” The veil is taken away. We are not left squinting at shadows; we behold the glory of the Lord with open face.
And beholding, we are changed—”from glory to glory.” Not by our own striving, not by resolutions made in January and broken by February, but “even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” So today, forgive someone as Paul urged the Corinthians to forgive. Comfort the sorrowing. Let your life carry the fragrance of Christ in your home, your work, your church. The transformation is His work, and He is faithful to finish it.
Reflection
- Is there someone in your life whom you have corrected, or who has wronged you, whom you are withholding forgiveness from—and could your withholding be giving Satan an “advantage” in that relationship?
- If your life is “an epistle of Christ… known and read of all men,” what are the people around you reading this week—and does it point them to the freedom and glory of the Lord?
Prayer
Father, we thank You that our sufficiency is not in ourselves but in You, who have made us able ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter that kills but of the Spirit that gives life. Lord, search our hearts for any unforgiveness, any hardness toward one who has sinned or sorrowed, and grant us the grace to forgive and comfort, lest anyone be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Take away every veil from our hearts. Let us behold Your glory with open face, and change us from glory to glory by Your Spirit. Make us a sweet savour of Christ in every place we go today, for Your name’s sake. Amen.