Reconciliation to God

It is dangerously easy to think of God as angry and judgmental. He is our Father and we constantly disobey Him and disappoint Him. He is the Creator and we are not known for taking very good care of His creation. He is the lover of truth. We are not.

Brethren, Christ died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2^nd Corinthians 5.15-21

Despite all our failings, God has come to reconcile Himself to us. He has ignored our sins, and disobedience and called us to Himself. He died for us because He loves us more than we love ourselves. The least we can do is to be reconciled to Him.

Reconciliation doesn’t mean that we will never sin again. It only means that we are committed to living in a relationship with Him. It means we are dedicated to ‘doing the best we can’ to follow His commandments. He already knows we are going to fall short, but He came anyway.

In our baptism we were united to God forever. Nothing can take that union away. That is just how much He is willing to forgive us. In our baptism we died to our old lives and were born anew with a fresh start. Now, something is different. We are no longer estranged from Him.

Living estranged from God causes more suffering, more pain, more sin. Being reconciled restores our relationship with Him. Think of the Prodigal Son. When he was reconciled to the father, he immediately returned to his glorious status.

The father was willing to forgive everything the son had ever done in one instant. All it took was for the son to ‘stand up and return’ to his father. The father did the rest. All we need to do is return to God, and He will bring us the rest of the way.

The ‘way home’ isn’t always easy, but it is possible. The hardest step is the first step and God has already taken it for us. The next step is ours.