The Ministry of Reconciliation

So, entrusted to us is the ministry of reconciliation. Since reconciliation basically means to change from enmity to friendship, i.e. resorting relationships to their rightful place, we should look closer at this word and concept in the Bible.

Reconciliation is something God accomplishes through grace on our behalf. God invites you and I, through His Son Jesus Christ and His work on the cross, to be reconciled unto Himself. It is something God has done for us and something we have to be willing to receive.

Never is God in need of reconciliation to us. He has no enmity towards us. The enmity is solely on our part and is a result of the orignal fall and choices made by our forefathers, Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Make no mistake, first and foremost, it is us that are in need of reconciliation to God.

Hand in hand with this concept of the fall and the breaking of man's vertical relationship with God, are the horizontal relationships that were broken at the fall and are in need of the touch of reconciliation: man to fellow man, man to creation and man to himself. As reconciled creatures ourselves, as we begin to experience the grace and love of God through Jesus, we are entrusted then with the great and awesome task of becoming God's ambassadors of reconciliation to others, to creation and to ourselves.

But what are the tools are reconciliation that we are to use as we approach others in need of being reconciled to God, to creation and even to themselves? To me, we need look no further than the life and ministry of Jesus Christ while He was here on earth.

I propose and would like to show you in subsequent posts that there are a number of reconciliation tools that Jesus used. These include...

1. Truth
2. Touch
3. Transparency
4. Tenderness
5. Toughness
6. Timing

How do these six things apply to our call to the ministry of reconciliation?

Stay tuned for the truth topic with our next post...