Exhortations, Blessings, and Greetings

Dannah Gresh: All this month we’ve heard that it’s the season of joy. But the truth is, sometimes that’s hard to believe. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says the Bible acknowledges real pain, but also provides hope.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: In this world there’s a whole lot of cause for grief and sorrow. But for the believer, grieving is not incompatible with rejoicing. They can go hand in hand.

Dannah: Welcome to the Revive Our Hearts podcast. Our host is Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She’s the author of Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together. It’s December 30, 2025, and I’m Dannah Gresh.

Here it is, the end of the year, and Nancy’s going to take us to the last lines of the apostle Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth. His words have meaning for all of us today as we close the book on this year tomorrow and then open up the new year. Let’s listen.

Nancy: I’m so grateful for the way that God’s Word speaks to us at every season of life, in every season of our calendar and our year. Every day it has fresh, new things to say to us.

Over the past few months I’ve been journaling in the book of 2 Corinthians. So for the next few days, as we come to the end of this calendar year and we prepare to turn the page to a new year, I want to unpack with you a few verses that I’ve been meditating on recently. They’re found in the last chapter of 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 13. We’re looking at 2 Corinthians 13, and we’re going to be looking over these three days at the last paragraph in this chapter.

So in verse 11 the apostle Paul says, “Finally . . .” Chapters one through twelve, chapter 13:1–10, has all been Paul addressing things that he knew these Corinthian believers needed to hear. Now he says, “Finally . . .”

Paul is bringing his letter to a close, and he does this with a series of exhortations, with a promise, with personal greetings, and with a benediction. So let me read this passage, and then we’ll dive into it.

Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice. Become mature, be encouraged,be of the same mind, be at peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints send you greetings. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Cor. 13:11–13)

We could just say, amen!

So here Paul is giving a blessing to these people. I love this passage, and I wanted to share it as we come to the end of one year and the beginning of another.  So, we’re going to look at five exhortations found in 2 Corinthians 13:11.

The first one is, rejoice. “Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice.” This is a word that’s used eight times in the book of 2 Corinthians, and it’s a word that means "to be cheerful, to be calmly happy or well-off." It’s a word that’s used in the imperative mood in salutations.

What’s a salutation? That’s what you say when you meet somebody or when you’re parting from someone. When you meet someone, what do you say? “Hi! Hello.” Or when you part, you might have said in an old-fashioned way, “Be well,” or “Farewell,” or “Godspeed.”

But this word “rejoice,” this salutation, is not just like saying, “Hello,” or “Goodbye.” It always communicates the idea of joy, of cheer. It means, “Rejoice!” When you see somebody you haven’t seen in a while or you’re leaving someone that you’ve been with for a while—maybe you just sent family off or guests from the holidays—you say, “Rejoice! May joy be with you.” It’s a way of saying goodbye, it’s a way of saying hello that’s packed with meaning.

Now, Paul’s letters to the Corinthians are filled with weighty issues. You have glimpses into his sufferings that he talks about in these books. There are challenges that he had to deal with that threatened the body of Christ. There were some important things, but Paul never lost his joy in the midst of it all, and he never failed to impart joy to others. Paul was a joy-receiver and a joy-giver.

But it wasn’t just Paul. Our Savior, Isaiah 53 tells us, was a “man of sorrows.” But Hebrews 1 tells us he was also anointed with the oil of—what? Joy! Gladness! So sorrow and gladness.

In this world there’s a whole lot of cause for grief and sorrow, but for the believer, grieving is not incompatible with rejoicing. They can go hand in hand.

Paul wanted these believers to be left at the end of this letter with a call to glad-hearted cheerfulness that was rooted in Christ and rooted in the gospel. Joy ought to be a characteristic that stands out in the servants and followers of Jesus, always rejoicing in what we have in Him. That kind of rejoicing is independent of our circumstances, what’s going on around us, what’s happening in our world. That’s not going to make us joyful this year-end or in the year to come. So Paul says, “Finally, rejoice.” How do we do that? We rejoice in Christ.

That’s the first exhortation: rejoice. Be glad. Be cheerful. Now, what’s the second exhortation? You find it in the same verse. Paul says, “Become mature.” Some translations say, “Become complete.” Another translation says, “Aim for restoration.”

Now, Paul had used this same word earlier in chapter 13. If you look at verse 9 of this chapter, Paul says, “We also pray that you become fully mature.” Same word.

What does this word mean? What’s it talking about? Well, it’s a word that means “to make complete, to make whole.” But that sometimes involves a repair or an adjustment. It means “to mend something, to restore something, so it can be put back together and be whole.” It can be put back in order.

For example, if you have a broken or dislocated bone, the doctor may reset it. It may be a painful process, but he wants to put it back in the right place. Sometimes we get broken relationships. They need to be reset; they need to be put back in order.

This word has to do with restoring what is broken in our physical bodies or in the body of Christ so that it can be whole and it can function as it ought, so it can be a body of Christ fit to be used by God in our world.

Now, Paul says, “Become mature.”  The implication here is you haven’t arrived. There’s still work to do. Now, throughout these books, Paul commends the believers in Corinth for many strengths. In chapter 1 he talks about their faith and their love. You say, “Well, isn’t that enough?” Paul is saying that the sanctifying, restoring work of God in these believers was not yet complete. There was more work to be done.

So Paul urged them to press on to spiritual maturity, not to settle into where they were at the moment. This is a process that doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, it requires change and mending and adjusting and restoration. It’s a process that not only did the Corinthian church need—become mature, become whole, become restored—but it’s a process we need perpetually in our lives and relationships.

What’s Paul saying? Don’t be content to stay where you are spiritually. As we head into a new year, be pressing on, encouraging one another to press on to spiritual maturity. Paul’s saying, “Grow up, and don’t ever stop growing in Christ and His grace.” No matter how old you are, no matter how long you’ve been in Christ, keep growing. Become mature.

So, rejoice, become mature, and then, number three, be encouraged. Another translation says, “Comfort one another.”

This is a word, “encouragement or comfort,” that means “to call to one’s side, to call near, to call for aid, first aid, or help.” So Paul says, “Comfort one another. Encourage one another. And as you do, be encouraged. Be comforted.”

Now, here’s the fourth one: be of the same mind. Your translation may say, “Agree with one another,” or “Be like-minded.” Paul says in Philippians 2, “Make my joy complete by thinking the same way . . . intent on one purpose” (v. 2). He says in Philippians 2:5, “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus.” 

Think about the attitude and mind that Christ has toward us. That’s the very same attitude and mindset that we’re to have toward one another.  Now, this verse doesn’t mean that we will agree on everything. “Be of the same mind.” It doesn’t mean we will think the same way about every matter.

How can he say, “Be of the same mind,” but you don’t have to agree on everything? Well, our mindset toward one another should be one of humility and mutual love and care. We are to agree on the things that are essential to our faith. We have a shared commitment to truth, that this is the Word of God and it is true. Whatever it speaks to, we’re going to agree on that, and whatever it doesn’t speak to or whatever it’s not clear about, then we can agree to disagree, something that people seem to have a hard time doing these days. We are to agree on the essentials of our faith. That is the basis for unity in the church.

So Paul says, “Rejoice, become mature, be encouraged and comfort one another,” and then, “Be of the same mind.” Finally, he says, “Be at peace.”

Now, those five exhortations in 2 Corinthians 13:11 provide a pattern, a template by which to evaluate our lives and our relationships in the family of God.

Let me ask, how are you doing—how am I doing—at cultivating and modeling these qualities?

 What about joy? Are you a joy-giver in your home, in your workplace, in your church, in your neighborhood? You can’t control what others do, but you can be filled with the Spirit of God and be a joyful person, a joy-giver.

Number two, spiritual maturity, growth, restoration. How are you doing on that? 

• Are you growing, or are you in kind of a neutral cycle? 
• Are you kind of zoned out, not being intentional about spiritual growth? 
• What about comfort and encouragement? Do you receive comfort from God and from others? Are you a giver of comfort and encouragement to those around you?
• What about oneness of mind and heart? Are you a divider or a reconciler?
• What about peacefulness through our words, our actions, and our attitudes?

 How our world needs today to see a radically different paradigm in the people of God, a reflection of His heart and His Spirit.

What kind of difference would it make around you if the people in your church, if we as the people of God, were living out these qualities? I’ll tell you what it would do: it would transform the environment around us. It would transform marriages, families, family gatherings. Church gatherings would be transformed. Private conversations would be transformed. Social interactions, workplace environments, and social media, if we were to live out these qualities, these characteristics.

Rejoice, become mature, be encouraged, be of the same mind, and be at peace.

What does Paul say? If you do these things, “the God of love and peace will be with you.” Again, that “you” is plural—y’all. Your church. 

Now, we know that God is everywhere; He’s omnipresent. But He wants to pour out among His people a sense of the fullness of His presence. He wants there to be undeniable evidence that God is in that church, God is in that marriage, God is in that family.

Churches and believers who heed these instructions we’ve been talking about will have a conscious awareness that God is with us, and they will experience His love and His peace. It will be seen in and through us, and what a sweet thing that is in a world that is torn apart with hatred, animosity, and division.

Now we come to verse 12, and it gets a little complicated here, because it’s verse 12 in the Christian Standard Bible that I’m using, but in most translations, it’s verse 13. They just arranged the verses a little differently, so I’m going to say verse 12 because that’s what it is in my translation. And we see here what is the expression of “God with us.” The God of love and the God of peace is with us, so what’s that going to result in? Here we go with verse 12:

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints send you greetings.

First, let’s look at just the beginning and the end of that verse. “Greet one another,” and “All the saints send you greetings.” So the Christians in Corinth, the ones who are receiving this letter, were to greet one another in person because they lived near each other, they were together. Paul was probably writing this letter from Philippi, hundreds of miles away. And the believers who were around him in Philippi did not personally know the believers in Corinth, but they sent greetings to the believers in Corinth because they realized we’re part of the same Body. We’re part of the family of God.

Now, that word “greet” literally means “to draw to oneself.” This directive is not just for extroverts. It’s for all of us. Now, this doesn’t do away with personality differences. Those are God-created, and they’re fine to have. But it does call all of us—however we’re wired—to get out of ourselves, out of our comfort zones, and to engage with others in the body of Christ. “Greet one another.” That’s for all of us.

Now this is not just a formality. It’s not just a rote exercise to get your hand out, “Hello, how are you doing? Hello.” But it suggests that we’re to greet one another intentionally, thoughtfully. And when we do this, it opens the door to deeper conversations and relationships.

There are a lot of us who wish that we had more rich, meaningful, life-giving relationships. A lot of people that you’d never imagine because they seem to be so outgoing and upfront, but a lot of those people are really lonely. They feel alone.

But those deep relationships that we crave, that we long for, to be known and to know, those kind of relationships don’t start that way. They start with “greeting one another,” saying hello, reaching out, expressing interest in others, asking questions, looking for opportunities to bless those around us with even simple greetings. A lot of us have gotten out of practice with this simple directive. “Greet one another.” I think it may be more important now than it has been in a long time. It’s something we need to recover in our relationships and in our fellowship. 

And let me say this, “greeting one another,” starts at home. Most of us can greet people outside our homes when we have to. It’s a matter of being polite, of looking respectable. We can be warm and outgoing. We can show interest in them.

But some of us become withdrawn, closed up, uncommunicative, even downright rude with the people we live with. They’re used to us. We’re used to them. “I don’t have to be nice to them.” Now, we would never say that, but is that not the way we act sometimes?

Listen, when your mate or your kids walk in the room—greet them! Acknowledge their presence. Let them know you’re glad they’re there. Let them know they matter to you.

My sweet husband Robert is the best at this. He’s so good at it. He’s taught me a lot about this. When I walk in the room, that man’s eyes light up. We’re not newlyweds anymore. We’re kind of like old married folks, but he still does this. He goes, “Oh boy! My love!” (He did it this morning.) “My precious girl!”

So, start at home and “greet one another.” This is the way of love. This is the way of sacrifice. It is a matter of being willing to honor and love others well. It’s not just a throw-away, “Hi, there.” Now, I’m not saying you don’t ever say, “Hi, there,” but there’s meaning to this. There’s purpose to this. This is a spirit of warmth and friendship and other-centeredness that should be conspicuous in our churches and in relationships.

Our greetings and our parting words to others matter. It’s a picture of an expression of sincere love of our brothers and sisters in Christ as is expressed in our everyday interactions.

So in the body of Christ, we are called to lay down our arms, to lay down our pride, our personal preferences, to leave our selfish agendas at the door. And we’re called to embrace one another. That’s behind this word “greet”—to embrace, to hold close.

Whatever our demographic, whatever our socio-economic, whatever our political differences may be, we are fellow recipients of the favor and grace of God. So we’re to seek to esteem and lift up those others around us with our words.

I’m not talking about something superficial here. We’re not talking about pretending, acting nice, but words that flow out of genuine love and humility. So when we walk in a room, it’s not, “Here I am!” But, “There you are! Bless you! I’m so glad to see you.” 

So Paul says, “Greet one another . . . and all the saints send you greetings.”

So, Lord, show us how to love well, how to greet one another in our homes, in our churches, our communities, among the people of God, with friends, with coworkers, especially those with whom we share a relationship with Jesus. Make us warm-hearted, responsive, receptive. Help us to greet one another, to touch one another in meaningful and pure and life-giving ways. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth giving us insight to the last part of 2 Corinthians, chapter 13. She’s been sharing the importance of greeting one another and how you can show the love of Christ in your everyday actions.

Her message is part of a series titled, “A Blessing for the Year End and the New Year.” There’s also a free PDF download from this series available to you at our website. Look for the transcript of today’s program, and you’ll find the link there at ReviveOurHearts.com.

We sure hope this series encourages you with truth from God’s Word as you get ready to turn your calendar and step into a new year. Nancy, can you believe 2025 is coming to an end tomorrow?

Nancy: Yes. I don’t know whether to say it’s been a long year or a fast year—maybe some of both. There’s been surprises, unexpected happenings in each of our lives, and the same is going to be true in the year ahead. We can be sure of that.

We don’t know what’s ahead, whether it’s this coming year or even in the coming months or weeks or days, but we can always trust that God is working, and we can always place our hope in Him.

And here at Revive Our Hearts, we want to continually remind you of that truth, not only as we transition and begin a new calendar year, but in every season of life. Our commitment is to keep bringing you the unchanging message of the freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness that can only be found in Christ.

Dannah: Amen. Nancy, as you know, Ed Cannon is president and CEO of Far East Broadcasting Company. He also serves on the board of directors. He has an important message for us.

Ed Cannon: I’m Ed Cannon, and it’s my privilege to be on the board of directors for Revive Our Hearts.

I’m glad to join you here for a few minutes at the close of today’s program to update you on how the teaching of Nancy and Revive Our Hearts continues to make an extraordinary impact around the world.

In addition to Mexico, Brazil, and some of the countries you've heard about, I have a firsthand view on how this message has taken off in Russia and Ukraine, in countries marked by war, with women who are losing husbands, brothers and families destroyed. These programs are touching their lives in ways that nothing else can.

I'd like to share how the message is being responded to all across Southeast Asia—Vietnam, Cambodia—and in Africa. There are just thousands of listener groups, primarily women, who gather to hear this unique teaching that Nancy offers. 

I want to assure you that your support and investment in this ministry is truly impacting women around the world. If you’re considering a donation to the ministry in the last few days of 2025, I urge you to follow through on that. I can assure you that this ministry puts your contribution to work immediately and effectively, with a real focus on doing exactly what that donation is intended to do. It’s an eternal investment you’re making in the lives of women.

The need for December is enormous—four million dollars to stay on track for the year. We would be grateful to have your help with that. May God bless you in the year to come and may His name be glorified as we partner to reach the nations.

Dannah: Thank you, Ed Cannon. Let me invite you to join us here in the last days of December. You see, this is a truly significant time of the year for the ministry because this is the month when we receive close to half of our donations for the entire year. And this month we’ve asked the Lord to provide $4 million to continue and expand the outreach He’s given to us.

Nancy: We’ve been sharing that number with you throughout the month of December, and now we’ve come down to the last two days of the year. That sounds like a big number—it is! I’m super grateful for every person—there’s been thousands so far—who’ve already given toward that match. Each and every donation means so much. 

Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, and you’ll find a link there where you can donate, or you can give us a call at 1–800–569–5959. Thank you so much for joining with us in what God is doing in the hearts and the homes of women around the world through the generosity and the prayers of His people.

Dannah: In order for your donation to apply to our December goal, we need to hear from you today or tomorrow. If you’d like to mail a check, it needs to be postmarked by tomorrow. Here’s our mailing address: 

Revive Our Hearts
P.O. Box 2000
Niles, Michigan 49120

And can I say? We are so excited to read through the Bible with you! Have you signed up? If not, today is a great day to do that! We’re kicking off that journey the day after tomorrow, and we want you to be a part of it. To sign up, visit ReviveOurHearts.com/Bible2026.

When you join the journey, you’ll receive:

• A one-year Bible reading plan.
• Encouragement from a global community. 
• Tools to help you understand and apply Scripture.

Well, tomorrow is the last day of 2025. Nancy will be back to remind you that you can face the future with hope and joy as she wraps up this series on “A Blessing for the Year End and the New Year.”

Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.

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