The Return预览

Reconciliation

With lights and sirens, the policeman pulls you over. He clocked you going 62 mph in a construction zone that clearly posted a 45-mph speed limit. You know you are guilty, but you argue anyway. “Abandoned bulldozers, officer! There’s no construction worker for miles!” and “Everybody else was going faster!” Both are true, but you earn an appearance in traffic court anyway. Admit it. You are guilty, but until you stop making excuses, you can’t receive reconciliation.

For true reconciliation, both parties acknowledge an offense has occurred. Reconciliation involves a change in the relationship between God and man. We confess it as sin and humbly repent. For reconciliation to be real, there needs to be true repentance (a turning away from sin) to start anew, so the offense does not reoccur. During the whole proceeding, Jesus Christ is ever interceding for us at the right hand of the Father. This is the key to being reconciled to God!

In Romans 5:6-11, Paul says that before reconciliation we were powerless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies; we were under God’s wrath. Because Jesus’ death and resurrection reconciles us to God, we become new creatures. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The message of reconciliation is centered around the love of God and the death of Christ.

Now that we have been reconciled to God through Christ, we become advocates of reconciliation to those around us. God “gave us the ministry of reconciliation” and “has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). The ultimate aim is that we are not only justified (vindicated), but that we might become the righteousness of God.

Talk It Over:

Grab a pen and paper and write three prayers to the Lord:

1. Lord, help me see times in my life when I have been “speeding through the construction site” but finding my defense in flimsy excuses like “Everybody else is going faster.” By your grace, help me see my blind spots so I can admit my violations of your law.

2. Lord, I admit it: You have shown me that in the areas of __________, ________, and _________, I discount my sin as something less than rebellion from your law. By the blood of my Savior, I ask for your forgiveness. Please reconcile me to right relationship now.

3. Lord, will you reveal to me specific names of people I know who need to be reconciled to you? Give me courage to love them patiently as You have loved me.