Reconcilers

2 Corinthians 5:18-21

God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. (2 Corinthians 5:18)

JESUS WALKED FROM TOWN TO town in Galilee and Judea, and sometimes beyond, teaching the truths of God’s Kingdom and demonstrating its true nature. Crowds knew him as a healer and deliverer, a man of profound words, the one who quite possibly would deliver Israel and restore it to its former glory. But from a God’s-eye view, Jesus was doing more than blessing those around him. He was reconciling them to the Father. In fact, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). And according to Paul, God has given his servants exactly the same mission.

That’s a claim loaded with meaning and enormous implications for how we live our lives. If we are reconcilers—calling the world back to the Father, refusing to count people’s sins against them because the mercy of God is pursuing them—then that calling will flavor all of our relationships. We are compelled by the love of God—not to fill every conversation with a gospel appeal, though at times that appeal will come up, but to live and talk in a way that makes that appeal inviting and understood. We are to live with open arms that welcome people into the Kingdom of God.

That makes you something of a doorway into a restored relationship with the Father. You’ll have to be secure in your own relationship with him, of course, but you’ll also need to live in the reality of that relationship. You are a new person in Christ, a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), no longer relating to God on the terms of your old nature but as one clothed in Jesus and bearing his identity and name. The old life is gone; you are now moved by his love to bless, reconcile, restore, and embrace. Wear your role as reconciler with joy, placing it above all other roles at home, work, school, church, in the community—wherever. Be the bridge that points to an even greater Bridge between the world and the Father who loves it.

{Father, let your love fill me. May I know it deeply and be moved by it to love others deeply and to connect them with your love. Let my open arms welcome many into yours. Amen.