May the mumbling commence!
What are the goals of ministry? First off, we want to bring glory to the Name of the Lord. Yesterday, we learned that the glory of God deals in relationships. With relationships, we will need to be in the business of reconciliation. There is no avoiding this fact without great injury to the body of Christ – the church. It is the ministry that Paul calls the Corinthian church to in Second Corinthians chapter five. That call stands for us as well. Read it below:
Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 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 men'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. (Verses 11-21)
What are we to take pride in? We are to take pride in what is in the heart. In the heart, relationships are formed. So we must get our hearts right before the Lord and all creation. As we journey along this road to making our hearts right, we can begin to take pride only because we reflect the light of Christ more accurately with every step we take.
These steps take us to the point of being a new creation. We are people of reconciliation. When our relationships break down, we are called to restore them. That is the hard work of reconciliation. Too often we avoid it. It is all too easy to go our separate ways – you know, irreconcilable differences. That is the way that so many denominations and non-denominational churches have begun.
It is wrong. We are to be one in Christ. Let us reconcile with one another. Let us do so in imitation of Christ Jesus who has reconciled us to God.
If, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we succeed in any small way, the world will take notice. A door will be opened so that those who do not know Christ Jesus as he is will be introduced to a Jesus that has been hidden in the fracturing of the church.
Let us be reconciled!
Enough mumbling for now…
Peace Out
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