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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. (II Corinthians 5:19-20)

Reconciliation comes from Latin terms meaning “again” and “to make friendly.” But since we’re talking about being reconciled to God, that’s just the same-old, same-old. God doesn’t hold our sins against us. He forgives our sins. He gives us new life. It’s good, of course, but what more can be said?

The first thing is that it was written to the church at Corinth. Why would they need to be reconciled to God? Paul wasn’t writing about the past. He told the Corinthians to be reconciled to God. Why? One good reason is that while God doesn’t hold our sins against us, that doesn’t mean we don’t stop sinning. As we repeatedly rebel, we have to be repeatedly reconciled.

But let’s consider another possibility. Have you ever been angry with God? There are times when I’ve told God that I was angry enough with Him that I really didn’t want to talk to Him, or have anything to do with Him. In the next breath, I told Him I recognized that my “Go away, I don’t want anything to do with You” wasn’t a good answer. It wasn’t even what I really wanted. It was just what I wanted then.

We tend to think and talk about forgiveness and reconciliation as what God does in His relationship with us. After all, He’s perfect. He can’t sin. All He does is right, true, and good – perfectly with His own moral wisdom and purity. That does not mean that, from our perspective, God does not sin. Ultimately, it means that our perspective is incorrect, but the point is that there are times when God does things we don’t approve of or doesn’t do what we insist He should. That doesn’t mean that God has actually done anything objectively wrong. It means that He hasn’t done what we want Him to. We may be deeply offended and may feel justified in our anger.

It is quite possible that we need to forgive God, and along with that forgiveness, we may need to participate in rebuilding the relationship. We need to be reconciled with God no matter the cause of the separation.

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