Sep 20, 2024 How Reconciliation is at the Center of Life in Christ – Words of Grace Blog – September 20, 2024
Here’s a deep-thought exercise for your final weekend of the summer. First, using as many commas as you need, summarize your life in a sentence.
Some of you will find this exercise to be an energizing challenge. Others will have no interest in this kind of reflection or will be so busy you simply don’t have time for this kind of thing. If this is you, just move on to part two.
The second part of the exercise is to read Colossians 1:21-22 to see how reconciliation to God is at the center of your life in Christ.
This week, my past, present, and future came into clear view as I read Paul’s words to the Colossian Christians. I was able to fill in his general statements about life in Christ with some details of my life. That’s what I hope we will all do.
We all have a past in which we were alienated from God, hostile in mind, and doing sinful deeds. This is the starting point because we were all born this side of Eden and have never known a time when our nature was righteous before God. This reality is what makes reconciliation to God our great need.
In Christ, we are presently reconciled to God. Christ made peace with God for us by his death on the cross. By faith, we are no longer alienated from God. Our lives are hidden with Christ. Our sins are forgiven. We possess his righteousness. Reconciliation is the great work of God in Christ on our behalf.
Now that we are reconciled to God, our future is one of glory. While the dark world grows darker, the path of the righteous in Christ shines brighter and brighter until the full day of the glory that awaits us (Proverbs 4:18). Then we will be before God in holiness, above reproach.
We were once alienated from God (our past), now we are reconciled to him by Christ (our present), to one day be before him in glory (our future). There is life in Christ in a sentence, with reconciliation to God at the center of it. My life and yours are full of details that differ from each other’s but fit into the broad categories of this “in Christ” narrative. What grace!
What is the point of this exercise this weekend? To stir us up to continue in the faith and to stabilize us in the hope of the gospel (Colossians 1:23).
I am praying for you this weekend. Join me in praying for our vision of Christ and our life in him to become brighter and brighter until the day we meet him face to face.
-Scott