The Message of Reconciliation

Hello friends in Africa, greetings in the name of Jesus from the United States. My name is Keith Davidson and I am a friend of Sylvester. He asked me to write something for the General Conference you are all attending. I hope you are all well and enjoying your time together.

2 Corinthians 5:19-20 says, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us.

It says God has committed to us the message of reconciliation … What does that mean? The word committed in the Greek literally gives the idea of placing, in other words God placed in us the message of reconciliation.

Reconciliation in the Greek gives the idea of an exchange, in other words our lives help to point people to the exchange that can take place in a person’s life when they accept what Jesus has accomplished on their behalf and embrace it. This exchange is the removal of the sin that keeps us from God with a place of hope, freedom, and friendship with God.

If we go back 2 verses in 2 Corinthians 5 in verse 17 it says,

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

God has placed in us His Spirit so that we can be agents or ambassadors of His love to those around us. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:20 … We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors

We are ambassadors with Christ, who lives in us, of this incredible hope that has been put in place for all of mankind. This was in Gods mind or in His plan from the beginning.

The Bible says that God declares the end from the beginning. Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done

God speaking in prophetic anticipation of the redemption and reconciliation that would come in the future through Jesus said the following in Genesis 1:26:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,

God is stating, I have a long term plan in creating mankind in partnership with my son Jesus to bring mankind to their intended and true image. An image God has seen from the beginning of time. Image in the Hebrew gives the idea of a resemblance or a representative

The book of Genesis is believed to have been written 1400 years before the birth of Jesus.

The following verses in the New Testament speak of the transformation of our lives that occurs through Christ, the Greek word for image gives the same idea as the Hebrew word of resemblance or representation:

Romans 8:29
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,

2 Corinthians 3:18
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Colossians 3:10
and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

We are still individuals with unique traits, qualities, and strengths which is important to remember and understand. Yet as Christians found in Christ as we remain in him we have the opportunity to gain positive qualities of God (our Creator), His goodness, His kindness, His love, His compassion.

2 Corinthians 5:20, as though God were making his appeal through us.

Why does God need to appeal through us? Because men and women are free to choose or not choose to accept this redemption and the process of transformation. Gods appeal is His love, His love is tremendous for the people He has created. We as ambassadors are to wisely and gently appeal and persuade to convince people that this reconciliation with God is greatly to their benefit.

Here is a story from a Christian named Corrie Ten Boom from the book Jesus is Victor (p.29-30). Corrie and her family hid Jewish families in Holland during World War 2, she survived a German concentration camp.

After World War II, my friends and I organized a former concentration camp in Germany as a shelter for the homeless. Once when I went there, I found a man (a lawyer) who was seriously ill. I asked him if he knew the Lord Jesus. “No,” he said “as long as I do not understand things with my brains I cannot believe them.”

I had a talk with him and I told him that in the book of 1 Corinthians, chapters one and two tell us about the wisdom of the wise and the foolishness of God. “In the Bible,” I said, “you can read very much about the foolishness of God. It is the highest wisdom. It is more important than the wisdom of the wise, because it is only through this that you get the real vision.”

It was some weeks later that once more I was in our camp and I went straight to my friend. He was even more ill than the first time I had seen him. I asked, “What do you think of the foolishness of God?”

“I can praise the Lord, for I have seen that it is the greatest wisdom. I have thrown away my pride and I have come to Jesus as a sinner and asked forgiveness. I thank Him for His death on the cross, and I can tell you that He has brought into my heart a peace that passes all understanding. It surpasses everything of the wisdom of the wise, but it is the greatest reality I have ever experienced in my life. I am so thankful for the Bible. During these weeks I have read much in it and I do not fear the future, whatever happens.”

Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38, 39

For the first time I saw him look really happy!

… hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? … Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. I Corinthians 1:20, 25

Corrie made the appeal of reconciliation to a man who was slowly dying and bitter, her appeal was successful. He came to realize the tremendous benefit of stepping into the salvation God had planned from the beginning of time.

2 Corinthians 5:19-20 in the Amplified Bible …

It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor).

So we are Christ's ambassadors, God making His appeal as it were through us. We [as Christ's personal representatives] beg you for His sake to lay hold of the divine favor [now offered you] and be reconciled to God.

I pray the Lord blesses the rest of your time at the conference.