Key Scripture – “It was God (personally present) in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favour with himself, not counting and holding against (men) their sins (but cancelling them), and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favour).” – 2 Corinthians 5 : 19.
Key Thought – “The eternal reality was reconciled with the earthly reality as God forgave our sin through Jesus’s death on the cross.”
Much of the world in which we are birthed into has been clouded by a veil that has kept God’s grace and love separated from the realty of everyday life. This is true in every situation that we face. For most people, the external quality of their lives is detached from their internal condition, the God who created them has nothing to do with their emotions, feelings and thoughts. It all started with the science of cause and effect, these strict laws have somehow produced a cosmos that functions independently as an enormous, relentless, magnificent machine. It’s detached chilled loneliness echoed through the world and told us that our only consolation was to stand outside of God and look on as helpless wanderers.
But this historic view of life, in which the earthly and the eternal are separate realities, does not make sense in the light of what God has done for us in his death at the cross. In the second letter to the church at Corinth Paul explains it this way,
“But all things are from God, who through Jesus Christ reconciled us to himself (receiving us into favour, brought us into harmony) and gave us the ministry of reconciliation (that by word and deed we might aim to bring others into harmony with him). It was God (personally present) in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favour with himself, not counting and holding against (men) their sins (but cancelling them), and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favour). 2 Corinthians 5 : 18-19.
In these remarkable words, we discover the amazing heart of God for us. For here we understand that God is the author of all things. Before time and in time God designed and created all things, the earthly reality was created from the eternal reality, we find that existence is made up of the energy God created, the light he put in place to demonstrate through the cosmos that all realities are interconnected and there is no separation between the created and the spiritual. To put it another way, God in Christ reconciled our earthy reality and restored us to his eternal reality.
In a reconciled universe, it means that God has received us into His favour and brought us back into harmony with Himself. This reconciliation is the good news of the cross, God is not our enemy, He has received us into His family and has repaired the damage sin did to our relationship. And God did this through Christ. God was present in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world back to himself.
This reconciliation means that Christ has restored the whole world back to himself. So this means that without man’s help God has gone ahead and repaired the damage in the relationship, gone ahead and restored us to a place of His favour, a place of harmony with him. On the cross, God cancelled the sin debt of mankind. Through Jesus’s death, God was not counting men’s sin against them. This means that our sin did not keep us from God.
The eternal reality was reconciled with the earthly reality as God forgave our sin through Jesus’s death on the cross. Through Christ we are now received into the embrace of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for visiting my blog. Please do not feel you have to comment. I enjoyed writing, listening to God and sharing his toughts. I hope you enjoyed reading, and may God who is able to make all grace, every favour and earthly blessing come to you in abundance, do far above all you can ask or think, according to the power that works within you. Be blessed.