Reconciliation

What does reconciliation mean to you? Are the people you know who you need to reconcile with? Do you view reconciliation as a bookkeeping task? Do you know God reconciled you to him through Jesus Christ? Do you know what to do now that you have been reconciled?

Reconciliation can be both challenging and rewarding. Anyone who has been estranged from a family member and later reconciled knows it was challenging to get to that point, but it is very rewarding. Renewing that closeness, sharing family memories, and making new ones.

Being reconciled to God is even more rewarding. It was a challenge for God to achieve that reconciliation. He had to allow his Son to go to a cross, die for us, and raise Him on the third day. So, it cost God tremendously to reconcile us to him. Our cost? Being willing to accept Jesus as our Savior and seek to follow Him.

But what does reconciliation to God mean to us? It means we can speak directly to God, which the Jews could not. It means we are forgiven of our disobedience, even if there are consequences in this world for them. It means we have the promise of spending eternity with God. It means our perfect God loves us enough to give us all of this at great cost to himself.

What are we to do with our gift? We are to tell others about the gift that comes through Jesus Christ. We are to tell our story. God has entrusted us with the message of the gospel. We are to relate how our reconciliation with God and relationship with Jesus has changed our lives. So, go tell your story.

I pray we all know that God has reconciled us to him. I pray we know our reconciliation cost God dearly. I pray each one of us will tell our story of reconciliation and how Jesus has changed our lives. God has reconciled you to him. Tell your story. Tell how Jesus has changed you.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.