God and Sinners Reconciled
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Reconciliation
Reconciliation
What a word that keeps coming up for us at Faith.
And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Reconciliation is the restoration of peace. Peace with God, peace with others and peace in our own hearts. It is a powerful miracle cure for broken lives and relationships.
Reconciliation defuses conflict and turns chaos into calmness. It quiets quarrels. It swamps stress for God’s serenity, turns tension into tranquility, and produces peace of mind instead of panic or pressure.
A third purpose of Christmas is reconciliation!
To the shepherds of Bethlehem the third announcement of the angel concerned the arrival of the “Prince of Peace”. Jesus would not only teach the way to peace but would empower us to live the lives of peace if we would trust Him.
Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace,
Good will toward men.
Is peace on earth something that is really possible or is it an unattainable fantasy?
Good will toward men - possible when current culture conditions us to be cynical and sarcastic, to use put-downs and name calling to demean and demonize those who believe differently?
By pride comes nothing but strife,
But with the well-advised is wisdom.
We often make demands of others instead of looking to God. No human being can fully meet all your needs. That’s a job for God.
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
The answer is pray more and complain and quarrel less. If this is our practice we would have a lot less to argue about and much more peace of mind.
Do not worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks. And God’s peace, which is so great we cannot understand it, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Jesus offers you peace with God
Jesus offers you peace with God
God created us to live for His purposes but we have been living in rebellion against God. The Bible states this is a universal problem.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
The symptoms of being at war or in rebellion against God are easy to spot:
irritability
quick temper
insecurity
impatience
manipulation
arrogance
boasting
holding grudges
other habits that the Bible calls “works of the flesh”
It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.
The effects of being reconciled with God - being at peace with Him - are all the qualities we need to have in our lives.
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Nothing else can compensate for a broken relationship with God. The good news of Christmas is that Jesus came to be the bridge of reconciliation between us and God.
God was in Christ, making peace between the world and himself. In Christ, God did not hold the world guilty of its sins. And he gave us this message of peace.
Peace comes from surrender - total, unconditional surrender to God. We need to admit that God is God and we are not! We give up the rebellious attitude and surrender to Him!
“Submit to God and be at peace with him;
in this way prosperity will come to you.
Jesus offers you the Peace of God
Jesus offers you the Peace of God
Once we make peace with God we will then experience His peace. The more you pray, the less you panic. The more you worship the less you worry. You will feel more patient and less pressured.
You, Lord, give true peace
to those who depend on you,
because they trust you.
What robs you of your peace?
Most of the culprits fall into three categories:
Uncontrollable circumstances (illness, layoffs & deaths)
Unchangeable people (those who refuse to cooperate with your plan to change them)
Unexplainable problems (when life seems unfair)
The path to peace comes through living and enjoying one day at a time, accepting what you cannot be changed instead of worrying about it, trusting in God’s love, care, wisdom and surrendering to God’s plan for your life.
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Jesus shows you how to make peace with others
Jesus shows you how to make peace with others
Once you have experience peace with God and you begin to experience the peace of God in your heart. God wants to us to experience the joy of being at peace with all the people in our lives.
As Christians we should be at peace with all the people in our lives. If not we are to work out the issue. Go to the brother or sister and talk it through and forgive. Our place is not to talk about the issue with anyone other than the one it is with. If you try to resolve the issue but reconciliation was rejected then you have done what you could do.
God gives us the desire, then the ability and power, to reconcile with the people in your life with whom you’ve had conflicts.
All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other.
Would you like God’s blessing on your life?
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Anytime you attempt to restore a broken relationship, you are doing what God would do. And when you help bring other people together you are doing a ministry of reconciliation. God looks down and says that’s my boy or that’s my girl.
What does it mean to be a peace maker?
It’s not running from the problem or pretending it doesn’t exist.
Peacemaking is not going with the flow or appeasing the crowd.
To work for peace you actively seek to end conflicts, take initiative in promoting reconciliation when relationships break down, and you offer forgiveness to those who have hurt you.
We are to pass onto others the same grace that God has shown us. We as the church are called to bring people together instead of dividing them.
And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.
Reconciliation ends hostility. It does not mean you have resolved all the problems in the relationship. You bury the hatchet not the issue. You continue to talk about the issues and work on them, but do it in respect and love and not sarcasm and anger. You can disagree agreeably.
Reconciliation focuses on the relationship, while resolution focuses on the problem.
There is a big difference between forgiveness and trust. Forgiveness is to be instant and free. The same was Christ offers it to us.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Restoring trust is a different matter. Forgiveness takes care of the past. Trust is all about the future. Trust can be lost in a second, but it takes a long time to rebuild it.
Christmas is the season of Peace on Earth Good will toward men. It is the perfect time to offer the gift of grace to others, while celebrating the grace God has shown us.
Who do you need to make peace with?
