Be Reconciled To God
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 men’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. (2 Cor. 5:18-21)
One Saturday morning, a man woke up early and was looking forward to a quiet morning with a hot cup of coffee and a fresh morning newspaper. With the family still asleep, he was glad to have some time to himself, so he brewed the coffee and began to read. Three sentences into the first article, he saw his five-year-old daughter descending the stairs. “Honey, go back to bed”. “But I’m not sleepy,” she insisted. Determined to read his paper, he again urged her to go back to bed. Again, she told him she was not tired. Looking at the newspaper, he conceived a plan. In the paper was a picture of the world, which he cut into several dozen pieces. Handing his daughter some scotch tape, he told her “Go sit at the dining room table and see if you can put the world back together.”
His daughter accepted the challenge, and he went back to finish his coffee and paper. After only a few minutes, though, his daughter came bounding into the kitchen. “Here, Daddy, I’m finished!” she said, showing him the picture of the world put back together. Amazed, he asked, “Sweetie, how did you do that so fast?” She replied, “It was easy. On the back side of the page was a picture of a man. When you make the man right, you can make the world right.”
That’s really the story of the Gospel isn’t it? To bring healing to this broken world, we must bring healing to each broken individual. The Bible speaks of this as the ministry of reconciliation.
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself.” The word reconciliation means “to agree together.” When you are balancing your checkbook, you must “reconcile” what you say you have in your account with what the bank says you have in your account - and if those numbers don’t agree, you know whose mistake it usually is! In the case of Divine reconciliation, the fault is ours 100% of the time. Sin throws our life out of balance and separates us from God. It breaks all hope of a relationship with Him and is irreparable by man. No good deed, no amount of religious activity, and no amount of giving can fix the brokenness created by sin. And yet in His never-ending love for us, God’s deepest desire is for reconciliation to take place. That’s the reason Jesus went to the cross.
“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ not counting men’s sins against them.” When Jesus visited earth, He was God in the flesh, and the reason He came was to reconcile us back to God. The word “counting” is a financial term that means to “take an inventory.” In other words, for those who receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, God doesn’t credit their sins to their account because of the righteousness of Christ. Imagine for a moment I’m a billionaire and I told you to go out and charge as much as you wanted on your credit cards, but then when you get your credit card statement, none of your charges appear - instead the credit card company puts the charges on my account. Would you like a deal like that? Who wouldn’t! When it comes to your sins, that’s exactly the offer God makes. God says that through the sacrifice of Christ all the sins you’ve committed, all those immoral charges, are no longer appearing on your statement. You may be thinking, “Someone has to pay the bill.” You’re right. Jesus has. Jesus paid it all. God takes the sin charges that we rang up and at the cross; He placed all those sins on the account of His perfect Son, Jesus, who was rich in mercy and grace. Only through Jesus can the debt be paid and reconciliation established with God.
"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. Jesus says that those who have been reconciled must then become ambassadors of reconciliation. An ambassador is someone who is appointed to live in a foreign country while maintaining their citizenship in their homeland. An ambassador doesn’t represent himself; he is always on duty to officially represent someone else. As ambassadors for our King, Jesus Christ, we represent Him in this world. In fact the only impression many people ever get of Christ is what they see in us. But here is the main point: Broken people who have been reconciled are then commissioned to go to other broken people and point the way towards reconciliation.
Can you imagine a U.S. Ambassador who stayed shut up in his Embassy all the time, constantly studying books about American history and taking notes about the U.S. Constitution? Can you imagine him only meeting with the other employees at the Embassy, and refusing to go out and talk about America because he’s afraid that someone won’t like his message? An ambassador like that would be recalled and fired in a heartbeat. The Church is our Embassy, but some treat it like the Embassy Suites! Our job is to leave the Embassy, and go out into the world and take the message of our King – Be Reconciled to God!
The only way to bring healing to this broken world is to bring healing to each broken individual. May the Lord use you as His official ambassador today as you share the message of reconciliation through the cross of Jesus Christ.
Live the Victorious Life,
PT
One Saturday morning, a man woke up early and was looking forward to a quiet morning with a hot cup of coffee and a fresh morning newspaper. With the family still asleep, he was glad to have some time to himself, so he brewed the coffee and began to read. Three sentences into the first article, he saw his five-year-old daughter descending the stairs. “Honey, go back to bed”. “But I’m not sleepy,” she insisted. Determined to read his paper, he again urged her to go back to bed. Again, she told him she was not tired. Looking at the newspaper, he conceived a plan. In the paper was a picture of the world, which he cut into several dozen pieces. Handing his daughter some scotch tape, he told her “Go sit at the dining room table and see if you can put the world back together.”
His daughter accepted the challenge, and he went back to finish his coffee and paper. After only a few minutes, though, his daughter came bounding into the kitchen. “Here, Daddy, I’m finished!” she said, showing him the picture of the world put back together. Amazed, he asked, “Sweetie, how did you do that so fast?” She replied, “It was easy. On the back side of the page was a picture of a man. When you make the man right, you can make the world right.”
That’s really the story of the Gospel isn’t it? To bring healing to this broken world, we must bring healing to each broken individual. The Bible speaks of this as the ministry of reconciliation.
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself.” The word reconciliation means “to agree together.” When you are balancing your checkbook, you must “reconcile” what you say you have in your account with what the bank says you have in your account - and if those numbers don’t agree, you know whose mistake it usually is! In the case of Divine reconciliation, the fault is ours 100% of the time. Sin throws our life out of balance and separates us from God. It breaks all hope of a relationship with Him and is irreparable by man. No good deed, no amount of religious activity, and no amount of giving can fix the brokenness created by sin. And yet in His never-ending love for us, God’s deepest desire is for reconciliation to take place. That’s the reason Jesus went to the cross.
“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ not counting men’s sins against them.” When Jesus visited earth, He was God in the flesh, and the reason He came was to reconcile us back to God. The word “counting” is a financial term that means to “take an inventory.” In other words, for those who receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, God doesn’t credit their sins to their account because of the righteousness of Christ. Imagine for a moment I’m a billionaire and I told you to go out and charge as much as you wanted on your credit cards, but then when you get your credit card statement, none of your charges appear - instead the credit card company puts the charges on my account. Would you like a deal like that? Who wouldn’t! When it comes to your sins, that’s exactly the offer God makes. God says that through the sacrifice of Christ all the sins you’ve committed, all those immoral charges, are no longer appearing on your statement. You may be thinking, “Someone has to pay the bill.” You’re right. Jesus has. Jesus paid it all. God takes the sin charges that we rang up and at the cross; He placed all those sins on the account of His perfect Son, Jesus, who was rich in mercy and grace. Only through Jesus can the debt be paid and reconciliation established with God.
"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. Jesus says that those who have been reconciled must then become ambassadors of reconciliation. An ambassador is someone who is appointed to live in a foreign country while maintaining their citizenship in their homeland. An ambassador doesn’t represent himself; he is always on duty to officially represent someone else. As ambassadors for our King, Jesus Christ, we represent Him in this world. In fact the only impression many people ever get of Christ is what they see in us. But here is the main point: Broken people who have been reconciled are then commissioned to go to other broken people and point the way towards reconciliation.
Can you imagine a U.S. Ambassador who stayed shut up in his Embassy all the time, constantly studying books about American history and taking notes about the U.S. Constitution? Can you imagine him only meeting with the other employees at the Embassy, and refusing to go out and talk about America because he’s afraid that someone won’t like his message? An ambassador like that would be recalled and fired in a heartbeat. The Church is our Embassy, but some treat it like the Embassy Suites! Our job is to leave the Embassy, and go out into the world and take the message of our King – Be Reconciled to God!
The only way to bring healing to this broken world is to bring healing to each broken individual. May the Lord use you as His official ambassador today as you share the message of reconciliation through the cross of Jesus Christ.
Live the Victorious Life,
PT
posted by Larry | 11:55 AM
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