Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

Today's reading titled Hotel Corona was written by Monica LaRose.

The Dan Hotel in Jerusalem became known by a different name in 2020.

Hotel Corona. The government dedicated the hotel to patients recovering from COVID-19. And the hotel became known as a rare

sight of joy and unity during a difficult time. Since the residents already had the virus,

they were free to sing, dance, and laugh

together. And they did. In a country where tensions between different political and religious groups

run high, the shared crisis created a space where people could learn to see each other as human beings first and even

become friends. It's natural, normal even, for us to be drawn toward those we see as similar to us.

People we suspect share similar experiences and values to our own. But as the Apostle Paul often emphasized, the gospel

is a challenge to any barriers between human beings that we see as normal. Through the lens of

the gospel, we see a bigger picture than our differences, a shared brokenness and a shared

longing and need to experience healing in God's love. If we believe that one died for all,

then we can also no longer be content with surface-level assumptions about

others. Instead, Christ's love compels us to share his love and mission with those God loves

more than we can imagine. All of us.

Today's our daily bread devotional scripture reading is from 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 14 through 20.

For Christ's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him

who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we

once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,

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