Hopeful....
Col. 1:21-23 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. [22] But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— [23] if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
Alienated and reconciled – what we once were and what we are now, all as a result of Jesus mission to earth.
Alienation is a word that I like saying, it has rhythmic and poetic vibes, and it slides off the tongue. But what it actually means is quite ugly. We most often use the word to think about little green men from other planets, and if we think along those lines we start to grasp the meaning of the word. To be alienated from someone means to be different, to have nothing in common, to think and desire different things, to consider the other strange and unknown, perhaps even for there to be an undercurrent of hostility. And that describes our relationship with God before we met with Jesus. We didn’t think as he did, we didn’t desire the same goals as him, and many of us were actively hostile towards him. Yet now we are reconciled to him, now there is peace between us, we are aligned towards the same goals and purposes, and the evil of our sin has vanished in God’s sight, so long as we continue in our worship and love of Jesus. Because here we must remember that we are only reconciled to God, because Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves.
And here is the point of the gospel that we should never lose sight of – it is good news. Bad news would be to tell people that they have to try and make themselves right with God, knowing from the start that it is an impossible task. Bad news would be to tell people that day in day out they must struggle to be as good as they can be, trying to avoid the one slip that would make them imperfect and unable to stand before the Holy God of creation. That’s not just hard work, it is hopeless. But good news is telling people that they just need to accept God’s grace, expressed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the task that brought reconciliation to us, the mission that was undertaken to do what we could not do for ourselves. It is an offer that brings us hope – that is good news, and news worth sharing.
Alienated and reconciled – what we once were and what we are now, all as a result of Jesus mission to earth.
Alienation is a word that I like saying, it has rhythmic and poetic vibes, and it slides off the tongue. But what it actually means is quite ugly. We most often use the word to think about little green men from other planets, and if we think along those lines we start to grasp the meaning of the word. To be alienated from someone means to be different, to have nothing in common, to think and desire different things, to consider the other strange and unknown, perhaps even for there to be an undercurrent of hostility. And that describes our relationship with God before we met with Jesus. We didn’t think as he did, we didn’t desire the same goals as him, and many of us were actively hostile towards him. Yet now we are reconciled to him, now there is peace between us, we are aligned towards the same goals and purposes, and the evil of our sin has vanished in God’s sight, so long as we continue in our worship and love of Jesus. Because here we must remember that we are only reconciled to God, because Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves.
And here is the point of the gospel that we should never lose sight of – it is good news. Bad news would be to tell people that they have to try and make themselves right with God, knowing from the start that it is an impossible task. Bad news would be to tell people that day in day out they must struggle to be as good as they can be, trying to avoid the one slip that would make them imperfect and unable to stand before the Holy God of creation. That’s not just hard work, it is hopeless. But good news is telling people that they just need to accept God’s grace, expressed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the task that brought reconciliation to us, the mission that was undertaken to do what we could not do for ourselves. It is an offer that brings us hope – that is good news, and news worth sharing.
posted by Gordon at
12:12 am
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