Not Home Yet: Your Message 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 men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

Some form of the word reconcile shows up four times in these two verses. It must be an important word. It means to take something that is out of balance or broken or disconnected and make it work or put it together or fix it. Let’s ask the standard journalism questions about these verses.

nothome_350Who? God did the reconciling; not us.

What? He reconciled us to himself. Our relationship with him was out of balance, broken, headed for eternal disaster. He fixed it.

When? At the moment we put our trust in Jesus alone for our salvation.

Where? Inside our hearts now and in heaven forever.

How? Simple substitution: Jesus died in our place to pay for our sin; now God does not count our sins against us. Through faith in Jesus, we are forgiven and clean.

What next? Go tell someone.

Think: These verses say that Christians still living in the fragile tents of our bodies on this side of heaven have been given the ministry and message of reconciliation. What have you done with that message? What could you do?

Pray: Thank God for reconciling you to himself through Jesus. Ask him to help you to know how to carry out the “ministry of reconciliation” he has given you.

Do: Type the word reconcile into an online dictionary and look at all the different things that word can mean.