Reconciliation...

I was reminded of some awesome Scripture today reading Perry Noble’s blog (highly recommend his podcasts…newspring.cc) – they’re found in II Corinthians 5…the Scripture not Perry Noble!

One my favorite verses starts in verse 17 where Paul tells us that if ANYONE is in Christ – meaning anyone who has experienced the life-changing work of Jesus – they are made completely new. This is some awesome stuff right here that I won’t elaborate on right now. But moving through the rest of the chapter Paul address reconciliation. I’ve heard this word for several years and always in the context of human relationships; husbands reconciling with their wife, children being reconciled with their parents, fellow Christians being reconciled because of offenses being forgiven. While these are great examples and certainly part of what God wanted us to understand I think we miss the most incredible part of this chapter – Jesus has reconciled us to God!

Let’s look at some secular terminology involving reconciliation – bank statements. Yes those are the systematic envelopes your bank mails to you that sit in a folder or drawer indefintely until you finally open them up only to find them pretty much useless 17 months later!! Anyway, the idea with a bank statement (in case you didn’t know!) is to us it to balance or “reconcile” your own account to what the bank says. Basically, if my checkbook says I have $500 but the bank says I have $300, I have made an error and need to reconcile my account to theirs. The same principle applies to our relationship with God. Jesus reconciled us to God. So basically God has looked at our life – sins, offenses, inadequacies, etc – and has said that because of Jesus our account matches His. Now if we were to compare our own “goodness” and “righteousness” – which by the way, go look up “filthy rags” because it means just that – we would find our account severely lacking with insufficient funds to cover the expenses for which we are responsible. But that’s why we don’t compare our goodness! We take on the righteousness of Jesus because He has made all things new!!! Because of the new life we have in Christ, we are now made right with God and our “account” has been reconciled.

Now as incredible as this is for us, it also applies to rest of the world and here is where we come in again – God gave you and me the ministry of reconciliation! WOW! That means I get to play banker!! We have been given the awesome, most rewarding job of telling people that because of Jesus their account is reconciled – their debts are covered and the resources of heaven have covered all expenses! What a contrast to today’s “church” culture – full of judgment, criticism, and arrogance, waiting for “sinners” to trip up so we can condemn them. But that is NEVER the job that God gave us. As long as we are here, we are His reconcilers; given the privilege to be His representative to our circles of influence – our workplace, our networks, our facebook friends, twitter followers, gym members, classmates, and families.

What would change in us, in our home, in our church, in our communities if we were all about reconciling – first remembering who we are in Christ – and telling others that their accounts have been settled forever?