AMBASSADORS

AMBASSADORS

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Psalm [MKJV] 30:4; 149:1 Sing praises to Jehovah, O you saints of His, and give thanks at the memory of His holiness. . . . Praise Jehovah! Sing to Jehovah a new song, His praise in the congregation of saints.

Ephesians [MKJV] 2:19-22 Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, 20 and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom every building having been fitly framed together, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord; 22 in whom you also are built together for a dwelling place of God through the Spirit.

  Yesterday as Michael was leaving he quoted Romans 3:23 to me.

  When we agree with God about sin and salvation, we instantaneously become sons and daughters in His eternal family. (Rom.3:21-26; Jn.1:12; 3:3) This is not however the only instantaneous event inclusive to His redemption; regardless of our prior position in life we instantly become saints with a new overarching vocation. (Believers are clarified as being saints in 61 NT verses.) We are ambassadors for Christ; messengers of God’s redemptive grace, His good news!

  “… we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

  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. 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. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin,[e] so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” (NLT 2Cor.5:16-21)

  Hmmm … but this leaves me with examination question “I know I personally cannot redeem anyone, but just how saintly and reconciling is my manner?”

  Thank you Michael.  EBB4