"Ministers Of Reconciliation"

I had lots of fun teaching at RiverTree for one Sunday in May this year. The topic as stated in the title above has been an issue burning in my heart for quite some time. As I grow in my relationship with Jesus, I always have to remember that it's meant to be a "public" thing and not a "private" thing.

The restoration of our relationship with God is a seriously incredible deal. Today, there are a lot of practices of old that are not a regular part of our culture. We'll never have to stand out on the street corners and sacrifice animals in order to cleanse the area so God's presence can descend from heaven. We won't ever have to find a live goat and send it away from the city carrying the sins of the population. These examples are extremely odd, but at one time they were absolutely necessary. Sometimes without such tangible habits it's easy to take His presence for granted.

What God did by sending His Son to pay the penalty of sin IN FULL for all of mankind is THE BEST NEWS EVER! I will never have to spend my life trying hard to get God to like me, win His favor or keep Him from allowing some drastic circumstance to wipe me or family off the face of the earth. His presence is not locked away in some box somewhere that we have to travel thousands of miles to go visit.

His Son died so God could live INSIDE me! When I pause and really consider this fact, it gets me excited. And this is the message that we are to carry all over the place. No one is exempt from being overtaken by God's tidal waves of love. No one is!

The message of God's creation being reconciled to Himself is not a message that's to be relegated to churches and professed by "men of the cloth". It's my message and it's yours.