Friend or Foe?

Have you ever made things right with someone after a fight? It is difficult and requires humility, but the restoration it achieves always leaves you feeling much better than you would have felt if you had not striven for peace. How much more wonderful is it, then, when we are reconciled to God?

This is my last devotional in a series on the beautiful words that teach us about what Christ’s sacrificial death means for us. We’ve studied atonement, propitiation, and redemption. Now it is time to explore reconciliation.

Although many in the world would like to conceive of God as their loving, heavenly Father, He is actually hostile and furious toward those outside of Christ (Psalms 7:11; II Thessalonians 1:8). It takes only a casual walk through the Prophets in the Old Testament to see these characteristics of God. He is wrathful because He is just. His anger flows from perfect justice, righteousness, and hatred of sin (Deuteronomy 32:4; Proverbs 8:13).

Because God is holy, He is filled with wrath against anyone who disobeys His laws. Idolatry, lying, and sexual immorality are sins that He especially condemns. For sinners like you and I, God is not a loving heavenly Father but a terrifying Judge.

Therefore, our sin alienates us from a relationship with God. I have mentioned in previous devotionals that the Bible calls us "children of wrath" and children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2-3). We are not children of God because our sin nature is completely contrary to God’s holy nature. We are His enemies (Romans 5:10).

What are we to do? We can do one of two things. We can choose to keep fighting against God and doing that which He despises, or we can respond to His offer of restoration and forgiveness. If we choose the former, our destiny is punishment in Hell.

But God, in His great love toward us, has provided a way to mend the relationship that we have ruined through sin (Romans 5:8-9; Ephesians 2:4-5). He has taken the initiative to have a relationship with sinners and make them His children. He sent His Son, Jesus, to die a cruel death on a Cross. By doing this, Jesus, God Himself in human form, took the punishment that we deserve for our sin. Then, He was buried and rose from the grave, defeating death!

So, God has done away with the obstacle which keeps us from Him—sin. Christ has satisfied God’s wrath against our sin. He has bought us from slavery. And now He is offering you the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation, if only you will turn from your own way and place all your trust in Christ and His work on your behalf.

When you become a Christian, Jesus gives you His righteousness in exchange for your sinfulness (II Corinthians 5:21). You become a new person (II Corinthians 5:17). You have to become a new person in order to be a friend and child of God, for in your natural state you will wither before His fiery anger. Having been given new life in Christ, you can now live in a new friendship with God.

If you have accepted Christ’s offer of reconciliation, are you living in a way that reflects your new relationship to God? Are you living in thankfulness to Him for not only rescuing you from Hell but also taking you as His own? Meditate on Ephesians 2:13-16 this week:

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” 

Read an overview of the whole series here.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV^® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

Photo by Jenny Venturo