Being what we are
We are ruled by the love of Christ, now that we recognise that one man died for everyone, which means that they all share in his death. He died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but only for him who died and was raised to life for their sake. (verses 14,15)
We Christians still have work to do in the tasks Jesus has given us. Today’s passage tells us what one of these important tasks is.
We have been appointed as Christ’s ambassadors, appointed to make people God’s friends again. We can do this only because we ourselves have been made God’s friends. We cannot be choosey or exclusive in regard to the people we reach out to; as Paul writes, ‘He died for all’. Our motivating force is the love of Christ – firstly his love for us, and then our love for him.
We may find this daunting. But we don’t have to. All we need to do is be what God has made us to be. To do that, we have to see ourselves as God has made us to be in Christ: new beings. Verse 17 makes that quite clear. That’s how God sees us. He sees us as people whose relationship with God has been made right. It should be how we see ourselves and how we try to live.
And so, reconciled and empowered by God, we stand in for Jesus, the reconciler, as we take the good news to those who are still God’s enemies. Our task: to bring them to the foot of the cross. The Holy Spirit will take over from there.
Father, I thank you for what you have made me through the saving work of Jesus. Help me be what I am, to the glory of your name. Amen.
by Robert Turnbull, in ‘Renewed Hope for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2000)
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