Romans 12:3 Gifts of Grace

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

I have been reminded that these posts go out on the world wide web and my Lord’s grace is offered to everyone. Some have lived with His Word all their lives and some are hearing it for the first time.

This ministry of reconciliation is meant for all of us, new and old.

2 Corinthians 5:20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

This implies to those of us that have been with Christ for decades as much as it does for those hearing the gospel for the first time.

We are subjected to a life lived in the world and cannot protect our minds without His help.

I lost sight of the fact that some are hearing His message for the first time and have tried to release as much information as possible because I sense that time is running out. I let my emotions get the better of me.

I had forgotten what it feels like to hear Him for the first time.

We live in a time of high anxiety and I let it get the better of me.

To those who are hearing Him for the first time, be anxious for nothing. The Lord is still on the throne. You still have time to get to know Him.

The word “to reconcile” means literally to exchange, to bring into a changed relationship. Some maintain that it is only a change in the sinner that is intended, a laying aside of his enmity, and coming into peaceful relations with God. But that manifestly does not exhaust the meaning, nor is it in the great Pauline passages the primary and dominant meaning.

(Source; International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia)

A simple way to look at the primary and dominant meaning is that it takes a minimum of two to form a relationship. How this exchange comes about has to be our primary focus in bringing about this message of reconciliation because without Jesus and His atoning work on the cross we cannot have a change in our relationship with God the Father.

Romans 3:25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Propitiation:

The word is Latin and brings into its English use the atmosphere of heathen rites for winning the favor, or averting the anger, of the gods. In the Old Testament it represents a number of Hebrew words-ten, including derivatives-which are sufficiently discussed under ATONEMENT, of which propitiation is one aspect. It represents in Septuagint the Greek stems hilask- (hile-), and katallag-, with derivatives; in the New Testament only the latter, and is rarely used. Propitiation needs to be studied in connection with reconciliation, which is used frequently in some of the most strategic sentences of the New Testament, especially in the newer versions.

To say simply that we are changed, i.e. born again, cannot be separated from the source and actions of Jesus to whom we have access to God the Father by faith.

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 4:22-25 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,  who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

All of this works together to bring about a change in our relationship with God the Father.