Ambassador for Christ

2Corinthians 5:17-21 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As Ambassadors for Christ and the Kingdom of God, we need to make wise choices about what you read, listen to and watch because what you allow into your mind enters your heart. A biblical world-view is looking at everything in life through the “Word of God” to determine right from wrong from the ‘Author of Life” and the definer of what is right & wrong. 2Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. The World says: “What difference does God make?” Our natural propensity is to do what we want to do and not bent towards God. The focus is on the physical, the emotional, and the psychological aspects of life, but lacks and longs for the spiritual. Our vision, purpose and focus of life are horizontal only. St. Augustine wrote that we are born with a God-shaped hole in our hearts and when we don’t fill that void in our lives with Jesus, we try to fill it with all sorts of wrong stuff that doesn’t fulfill our hearts desire. All of us are born “spiritually blind”, but Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).

What exactly does it mean in Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”? One of the biggest realizations for the Christian is to recognize that those who have not heard the Gospel (God’s Plan of Salvation) and accepted Christ into their heart as Lord and Savior are blind to spiritual truth. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3 Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." I’ve always concluded it this way: “You must realize that you are lost before you can be found”. Sin is defined as “falling short, breaking or rejection of God’s standards, laws and commands”. We must see that we have sinned against the one true “just” and “holy” God, our Creator and sustainer of life; we are Sinners with no way to redeem or save ourselves from his coming judgment and rightful wrath, then cry out with a contrite heart for His mercy and grace, which He freely gives those who truly repent, for forgiveness. This is the meaning of Romans 6:23.

But salvation is a choice! When we accept the “free” gift of salvation through the sacrificial and redemptive death of Jesus Christ on that cross in our place for our sins, a vertical relationship is opened, as God gives us … along with forgiveness of our Sins, adoption into the family of God as a “Child of God”, the Holy Spirit inside to guide us, and eternal life of the kingdom of Heaven … the missing piece (the Prince of Peace) that fills the God-shaped hole in our hearts, with eyes that see and understand the truth through God’s holy and pure Will and Way, by the Word of God. 1Peter 1::23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God.

Grace & Peace
Brian