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We miss God’s goal (aka sin) for our lives. That separates us from God. We need reconciliation to God.

When the Messiah Jesus died on the cross, He satisfied God’s judgment and made it possible for God’s enemy, that is us, to find peace with Him.

Jesus did that by shedding His blood and being the sacrifice for me and all of us.

Our reconciliation, to God, then, involves the exercise of His grace and the forgiveness of sin. The result of Jesus’ sacrifice is that our relationship has changed from enmity to friendship.

I no longer call you slaves … Instead, I have called you friends.

John 15:15

That the disciples of Jesus the King experience reconciliation is a glorious truth! We were God’s enemies but are now His friends. We were in a state of condemnation because of our missing God’s goal, but we are now forgiven. We were at war with God, but now have the peace that transcends all understanding.

God takes the initiative in bringing about reconciliation

  • 2 Corinthians 5:18–19  — Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through the Messiah and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in the Messiah reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
  • Romans 5:6–8  — For while we were still helpless, at the right time the Messiah died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, the Messiah died for us.
  • Galatians 4:4–5  — But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
  • Ephesians 2:4–5  — But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with the Messiah (by grace you have been saved),
  • 1 John 4:10  — In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.