Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Be Reconciled

 

[Photo of a field with words superimposed]


“We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
—2 Corinthians 5:20b

Healing broken relationships is one of the truly most noble endeavors. It doesn’t matter who caused the breech. If a means for reconciliation exists, we must take it.

Consider the breech in our relationship with God.

God gave first man, Adam, a perfect world. But Adam wanted more. He believed Satan'’s lie that he could be like God without God. So Adam sinned and broke the only rule God had given him. Adam breeched his relationship with God.

We have inherited Adam’s sin and added our own sins to that original offense.

You might think that if anyone was going to try to repair the relationship with God it would be us. We’re the ones who broke the fellowship. Surely we have to be the ones to try to bring about reconciliation.

But no, God made the first move.

The Apostle Paul explains this so elegantly in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.

And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God sent His one and only Son to pay the penalty for our sin and repair the breech in our relationship with God. Then, Christ rose from the grave to give us the gift of victory over death and eternal life.

We who were totally unrighteous have become righteous in Christ. And more than that, through Christ, God has made us His ambassadors and ministers of reconciliation.

As a new day begins, let us fervently share this good news. And, let us be the reconcilers that God intends us to be.

I urge you, if Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart, receive with joy the gift He has given you. For if He is knocking it means He has chosen you to belong to Himself.

 

Copyright © 2015 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.