I got slapped in the face today.......reconciliation: nuff said

This morning I read a chapter in the Bible that hit me right in the face! --2 Corinthians 5 where one of my favorite verses comes from; “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (17)--this verse alone is enough to make my heart explode; it seriously should be mind blowing that we have been made NEW in Christ; praise Jesus! While I could easily write a blog entry about this verse, it’s the verses that come after it that rocked my world today.

Paul goes on to talk about how God has not only reconciled us to himself, but has given us the ministry of reconciliation. PAUSE: before I go any further I think we need to define what “reconciliation” means so we can truly grasp what’s going on here.

Reconciliation = “to make two conflicting things compatible or consistent with each other; to reestablish a close relationship between; to settle or resolve.”

FRICK! I think it’s easy to forget that before Christ we were enemies with God. I’m talking ENEMIES! Our sin put us in direct rebellion against everything that God is. Colossians 1:21 testifies to this: “Once you were ALIENATED from God and were ENEMIES in your minds because of your evil behavior.” Enemies. Rebels. Separated. We were ALIENATED; cut off from the life source.  BUT-- “now he has RECONCILED you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” Did you hear that?! We’ve been RECONCILED, aka: we  are no longer enemies and separated but rather, we are in close relationship; the punishment for our sin has been resolved! That is amazing! This had nothing to do with us but ONLY through “Christ’s physical body through death” has it become possible for us to be restored to the original state of communing with our creator.

As an individual this passage SHOULD stir up some personal gratitude for everything that Christ has done on your behalf; it should challenge you to examine yourself and to really ask yourself—does my heart get that I’ve been reconciled? That I’ve been restored? That I am now a new creation and can walk in the power and authority of the gospel given to me by the blood of Jesus. THIS verse my friends; is good news. The good news of the gospel is not that our lives become peachy but that we get God! We are no longer enemies but heirs! Adopted children! AAAGGHHHH!

I could easily stop here as well but I HAVE to keep going because the passage only gets better! Paul points out that not only have WE been reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus, but that he has given US the authority to share this message with the world; “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” (18) US! Not your pastor, or teacher, or parent but EVERYONE who claims to have been made new in Christ; he has commissioned us to go and share this message of reconciliation with the entire world.

We represent God. We are his plan for reaching the world. “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (20). Ambassador is defined as “A diplomatic official of the highest rank appointed and accredited as representative; an authorized messenger or representative.”

We are Christ’s ambassadors. We represent God to the world. It is US who get to carry the name of Jesus and it is US who get to share this great, magnificent, impeccable, mind boggling, jaw dropping, heart stopping, life-changing message of reconciliation with the rest of the world. What are YOU doing with it?

Are you sharing this message or are you keeping it to yourself? Has your own heart even truly received this? --that you have been grafted into intimacy with God after once been alienated and enemies, without hope, and no chance for redemption through your own efforts.

The Holy Spirit spoke personally to me in verse 20 when Paul describes God “making his appeal through us.” I literally camped in this verse for an hour. I can’t even try to put into words what exactly was going through my heart and mind but what I can tell you is this: I was absolutely floored by the idea that the God of the universe wants to reveal himself to the world, and that he wants to do it through me. He has chosen me to be an instrument to make himself known; to draw men and women to him. To open the eyes of the lost, to cast light in dark places, to heal and restore, to erase doubt and implement understanding; he has chosen ME to scream at the world the REALITY of who is he, what he is about, and who he is for. O.M.G………what!?! Agh! I can’t even contain that! God is making his APPEAL to the world through me…….yep just got goosebumps. I’m 98% most of you reading this have no clue as to why I’m all hyped up about this verse but I pray that this blog triggers some curiosity in you to go and take a look at 2 Corinthians for yourself, and pray that the Holy Spirit gives you the wisdom and revelation to know what is going on here.  This blog hasn’t even touched the surface of what the Holy Spirit did in my heart today but I pray that as the body of Christ that we will not only remember the greatness of the Gospel and that it is in fact, GOOD NEWS!--But that we will be compelled by Christ’s love in us to go and reach the world with this message of reconciliation. That we ourselves will continue to be reconciled to Christ, and that the Holy Spirit will have its way in our life, and in our world.

Dealing with failure & lies

Sorry it’s been FOREVER since my last post! I encountered two problems during the time gap.

Problem #1: I had so many amazing things going on in my life I didn’t know which to write about! Instead of just picking one thought or God encounter I ended up not writing about anything which is no good! Problem #2: I had a week off from school for a holiday break which consisted of me being rrrreeaaallyy lazy aka—I sat on my couch and watched movies/worked. Yep that’s about it. And while it was nice to relax, spending too many days on the couch is not a good thing. I ended up getting into a small funk (this typically happens when you isolate yourself) with that said however, the Lord in his graciousness still gave me a revelation that I’d love to share.

We fail every day. Yet some days it’s easier for us to become aware of our failings more than others; once we are aware of our failings however, we often allow ourselves to rot there sometimes.

It is in these moments that Satan gets footholds into our lives and tells us lies. We start to think thoughts such as: “How can I read my bible today when it’s been a whole week since I’ve even opened it” “How can I pray to God when I’m so consumed with things in this world I don’t even know if I want to pray to him” “How can I ask God for anything right now, I don’t even deserve for him to listen to me.”

 1 Peter 5:8 says that the devil “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” The enemy is adamant about convincing you that his lies are true. He wants you to feel ashamed of the sin that you’re entangled with. He wants you to feel guilty about not reading your Bible. He wants you to feel like God is angry at you and is going to reject you because of your continual rebellion. But these are lies!

As we become aware of our failures it is easy to feel lowly, despised, and rejected towards God because we feel ashamed of our condition. But there’s good news; 1 Corinthians 1 tells us that “God chose the FOOLISH things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the WEAK things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the LOWLY things of this world and the DESPISED things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” Did you hear that; God chooses weak, lowly and despised things. He doesn’t wait for you to be perfect before he uses you—he came for the sick not the healthy (Luke 5:31). God is in the business of using broken people to bring him glory. He’s also in the business of restoring and redeeming these broken people through his ministry of reconciliation.

God’s word says that God is sufficient (2 Cor. 12:9—“My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness”) Wisdom = God’s word applied. When am I going to start walking in wisdom? When am I going to start applying this truth to all parts of my life and not just the easy ones?

Challenge for today: return to the Lord. Regardless of circumstances or rebellion or seasons of running from God, the Lord is waiting with open arms. It is only by his spirit that you get cleaned—return to him because he is good, and his plans for you are phenomenal. Return to him and be restored because “the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love (Psalm 103) and “his compassions never fail, they are new every morning” (Lamentations 3). The enemy wants to keep you in the lie that says you should feel ashamed about where you are. But scripture says where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17). It’s time to rise up; its time to stop letting excuses and circumstances get in the way of all that God has for you. Today its time to step out into the unknown purposes of God.