I love my drive to work because it takes me out of the city and into the less urban part of Kentucky. I have the most awesome view and I am grateful for the daily reminder that there is a God and He is wonderfully creative.
On my drive this morning I marveled at the rays of sun filtering through the clouds at just the right angle, and at any moment I was expecting to hear the Hallelujah Chorus. But instead, what I heard was God's still, soft voice prick my heart. You see, the other thing I love about my commute is it gives me quiet time to spend with God.
My heart was heavy as He reminded me that we should be about the ministry of reconciliation. Time is short and we don't have time to waste on things that happened in the past, building up our own agendas or kingdoms, or nursing old wounds. God is calling us to heal. He is calling us to forgive. The only important thing that we do in ministry is to make Christ known.
Second Corinthians 5: 17-21 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new is here! 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 people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."
How can we win anyone to Christ, when we cannot serve in unity within the very group of people that we profess are our family--brothers and sisters in the faith!?
My brothers and my sisters....God implores us that as we have been reconciled to Him, let us be reconciled to one another. I implore you to take one moment and think about your own life. If a Holy God can approach you for reconciliation, how much more should you be willing to give grace to someone else? Can we try that this week? Just to cover each other....to extend an over abundance of grace. Not that they deserve it, but that is what grace is--something we don't deserve. But check this out....God did it first, He set the example. He gaves us grace. Something we don't deserve...that is what God lavishly pours out on us.
But this is the part in that verse that gets me..."as though God Himself were making His appeal through us." Is that a WOW! Moment or what? God wins people through us. They should see Him when they look at us.
So....today...let grace abound!
