Restoration Series: What is Reconciliation? | March 3, 2023

Read the Scripture below. Allow the passages to interpret each other as you answer the question, “What is reconciliation?”

Colossians 1:19-22 NLT

For God in all his fullness
    was pleased to live in Christ,
²⁰ and through him God reconciled
    everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
    by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

²¹ This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. ²² Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 NLT

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. ¹⁹ For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.

Romans 5:10-11 NLT

¹⁰ For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. ¹¹ So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

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Some simple definitions of reconciliation from Merriam-Webster and Bible dictionaries are:

Restoration of friendship, resolution of conflict. To restore to friendship or harmony. Restoration is a change in the relationship between God and man or man and man from enmity to friendship. It is a restoration of a broken relationship now healed. From fragmentation to harmony and fellowship.

Notice how the word, “restore” is used multiple times to describe reconciliation. It is a bringing back to a former position or condition. I love this! Maybe you do, too, as you think about things in your life that have been restored: an old car, a home, a broken bone, or even a relationship.

God’s reconciliation is unique:

1. In order for restoration to happen, His Son Jesus had to shed His blood on the cross.
2. He invites us to partner with Him in this work of reconciling all things to himself.

More on this tomorrow. As you go about your day, think about this gift of reconciliation between us and God. Thank Him for it and notice all the ways you see it played out in your daily life.

Lord, thank you for restored friendship with You because of Your Son Jesus! As I go through my day, I see evidence of your reconciliation in my relationships where forgiveness has restored them and brought back harmony, in nature where seasons reveal the life cycle of all growing things that die in winter and are resurrected in the spring, and as we come together as your church body in unison to serve and to worship. Thank you for this miraculous gift! In Jesus’ name, Amen.