Weird? What is weirder than thinking there is something that stands between you and God? That seems normal to many people, but it is not to God. He reconciled us all to himself BEFORE we believed it and received the truth in our hearts.
You might BE odd, or it could be you are resisting the grace of God in your life, but God is not at odds with you! God is not trolling through your life, looking to causes chaos and disruption to teach you a lesson. On the contrary, he has removed every obstacle between you... before you asked him.
The only weird thing between you and God is not believing what he has done.
Do you know what reconciliation is? Some see the word in scripture to refer to the accounting books of heaven being cleared. But it is really more of a relational word instead of a legal or accounting word.
Did you know that you were reconciled to God BEFORE you accepted his love for you? While you were still running in the other direction? Understanding reconciliation is one of the most life-giving truths in the Bible!
Romans 5:10-11, “For if, WHEN WE WERE ENEMIES, we were RECONCILED TO GOD by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled we shall be saved by his life.”
When I taught on this verse, I had the students paraphrase it so it would impact their hearts. Here is mine:
“Even while I was living my life in resistance and defiance to the expectations and truth of God, He decided to remove every obstacle through the death of Jesus Christ. My sins were removed while I was still committing them, before any change occurred in me. Imagine how saved, healed, whole and delivered I am once I receive/accept it and begin to draw on the very life of God!
That's not all. Look at 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
Think carefully about what Paul said. God has reconciled everyone through Christ and is not imputing/counting the sins of the world against them. Here is my paraphrase:
God did all the work himself. He changed this situation for the whole world of humanity. He comes not as an opponent, but as a friend through Christ’s ministry. He has left no obstacles to unity and peace because he is not counting the sins of the world against us. Now by divine appointment I have received the ministry, not of bringing about reconciliation, but of announcing this wonderful change that has already occurred in the way God deals with people.”
He has given us the ministry, NOT of GETTING people right with God, but ANNOUNCING that God has removed all the obstacles for relationship. The Gospel is a declaration of good NEWS, not an activity of individuals cleaning up enough to please God.
God reconciled us THROUGH the death of his Son. How? Because whatever was happening to Jesus was also counted for us. As the Son of Man he represented us all in his incarnation. His death was our death. The Lamb of God carried all our sin away.
Plus, you were born under grace, because you and I have never been under the Law, notice what Paul says,
Romans 4:15, "...for where there is no law there is NO TRANSGRESSION."
Romans 5:13, "For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is NOT IMPUTED when there is no law."
Do you get it? Christ's death, burial and resurrection, plus the removal of the Law has reconciled us all to God before we accepted it. From his perspective the only thing separating us from him is our unbelief in what he has accomplished. That is why Jesus said, "When the Spirit comes he will convict the world of sin... of sin because they don't believe." (Jn. 16:8)
Why not change your mind and allow the faithfulness of God to produce faith in you today! God is not at odds with you.
One of the reasons that we struggle in our relationship with God is that we don't understand what happened in the death, burial, resurrection, ascension and glorification of Christ. Do you understand what was happening on the cross? Do you know what Jesus was doing in Hades for 3 days?
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