The Ministry of Reconciliation!

(2Corinthians 5:18) “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;”

Today is a new day with lots of fresh possibilities, we may be taken out of our comfort zone and have to face new surrounding which in turn will bring will it new challenges. I will now be blogging over the next week or so like I did over December, I will be on the move in Natal on a golf tour, but with it will come lots of challenges, and I am not talking about my golf swing. Some of the men claim to be Christians while others often enquire after its truth and then some out rightly reject Christ’s victory on the cross. I am in two minds this morning on whether or not this golf tour is a good idea, and all that will accompany it. Caution must be the order of the day, especially with my personal track record as one who is volatile; yet having said that, there is also a time in a believer’s life that they need to come of age and stand up and be counted, to take the punches head on and to declare our allegiance to our great Saviour the Lord Jesus. I am rather excited about this possibility; although some will openly mock when the Lord opens the door unbolting deliberation around the truth of His Word, while others will be forced to make a stand one way or the other. I pray for Derek as He has the most inquiring mind of all, that the Lord would save his soul.

Whatever today holds or wherever the Lord may lead us, we must remember that today is a day full of new possibilities; will we glorify our great God and exalt His majestic Name or will we shrink back into the corner and take up our normal cowardly stance? I pray we will be bold and zealous for Him, as we now carry the torch of life. Yes, Jesus is the one and only hope!

We may have made many bad choices along life’s journey, but let our minds now move from the “woe is me” kind of attitude and let us shift gear into “overdrive” (the gear of hope). Our mentalities must swing as we now hold the key to eternal life for all those who cross our path. The baton is now in our hands and we have a responsibility to offload it to the next person in line. Remember the Lord’s instruction to His disciples; “And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:15-16) – We understand that this instruction was specifically intended for the disciples as God had specifically signalled them out to lay the foundation for the church. We often like to claim that which is not ours. Yet we all have a measure of reconciliation; I do not say this to put a yoke upon our shoulders and leave us walking in condemnation as some may find it hard to share with others. But we must realise that we may be the last of all hopes for some.

I remember many years ago and I sadly confess that I was not walking obediently before my gracious heavenly Father. I can distinctly recall the urgency I felt to share the gospel with a certain individual but held my peace; sin has that effect on our lives! It will keep us from being effective, we must make it our absolute priority, and we must find grace to deal with sin in our lives. It was my sin that disqualified me from sharing a message of hope with this man, I am not saying he would have repented there and then, that is God’s domain and not ours, but I am nevertheless guilty of failing in my responsibility of sharing a message of hope with him, even if he had heard the Gospel a number of times before. He died in a car accident the following day; he could not have been older than thirty.

Lets us look at today as a day full of merciful opportunities, today may just be the day that the Lord chooses to save a soul using us a spokesperson on His behalf, what a wonderful thought!

Signing off

Tyrone