We want to have our relationships with God restored. This devotional reading looks at how we are we are reconciled through Jesus.
Nuggets
Jesus doesn’t lose us because we have been reconciled with God.
Jesus doesn’t lose us because we have been reconciled by God through Jesus.
In the last devotion, we began the How Christ Doesn’t Lose Us series. We looked at how Jesus doesn’t lose us because our sins are forgive and we have been reconciled to God.
Jesus advocates for us when we sin, cleanses us from sin, and keeps us because of His righteousness.
Now, we are going to continue looking at how God reconciles us.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the The Surety of Our Salvation study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
The foundation of this study is Beveridge’s sermon The Believer’s Safety
Resource
The headings are Beveridge’s Words.
God Reconciled
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom. 5: 10 ESV)
Jesus doesn’t lose us because we have been reconciled with God.
Some worldview people may not feel that they are enemies of Christ. They may not consider themselves friends of Jesus, but neither do they consider themselves enemies.
They do not realize that they were condemned the moment Adam and Eve committed the original sin. The only way they are not condemned is if they consciously choose to accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord.
What makes us enemies of Christ? We don’t regard Him with the reverence He deserves. We are more interested in our own will and opinions. We want to do what we want to do.
Gifford reminded us that sin is personal. It is our own decision to commit the sin, even if we are following the crowd. We make the choice.
Resource
When we choose to sin, that makes us the enemy of God. Ooo, baby. There is no more powerful enemy than Him!
But God love us too much to leave us in our sinful state. He devised a plan that we can be restored to Him.
We just have to choose to be restored.
We are only restored through Jesus’ suffering. He had to shed His blood so that we might be cleansed.
I have to process what Jay said. He wrote,
“We are ‘saved by His life.’ But are we not saved when reconciled? No. The one regards God, the other regards ourselves. But did not He exclaim when He expired, ‘It is finished’? Yes; but what was finished? The work of redemption, or the procuring of the thing; not the work of salvation, or the applying of the thing. The case is this. We were guilty, and by the death of God’s Son expiation was made for our offences. He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and thus removed every hindrance on God’s side to our return to Him. Yet we are not actually saved till we receive Christ, and are found in Him. Indeed, as to the commencement of the work, and the certainty of the issue, Christians are said to be saved already.”
Resource
- Sin destroys our relationship with God. Reconciliation is the process of restoring it.
- Reconciliation and salvation are two different things.
- When Jesus died on the cross, He completed all that was necessary to put the Plan of Salvation into place. It did not mean we were saved at that point in time.
- We are free to return to God’s loving presence, but we have to choose to repent of our sins and obey Him.
We are reconciled and saved by one thing – God’s grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2: 8-9 ESV).
Remember, salvation is a three-step process. We are saved at conversion when we are regenerated and changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive. Then, we have to work out our salvation daily through sanctification. We won’t not sin until we are truly saved when we reach Heaven.
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
Glossary
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Reconciliation takes the forgiveness a step further. It restores the fellowship with God. We are to be at one with Him.
If Jesus’ death on the cross finished the Plan of Salvation, then His resurrection cemented the reconciliation.
Our hope would be misplaced in a dead man. Jesus needed to live to make the Sacrifice worth something more to us.
Reconciled through Christ
“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (II Cor. 5: 18 ESV)
Jesus doesn’t lose us because we have been reconciled by God through Jesus.
Let’s put this in context. The verse before this was “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (II Cor. 5: 17 ESV).
What we get from God is regeneration after salvation. Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
Glossary
All this, we get from God freely. “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many” (Rom. 5: 15 ESV).
The operative word is all. When we become new creations, it means all within us is a new creation. We don’t hold any part of ourselves back from God’s renewing.
What does God give us? Spurgeon told us. He wrote, “Its privileges, pardon, justification, sanctification, adoption, communion.” God’s pardon is His forgiveness.
Forgiveness is, when we ask, the act of God pardoning us because we have shown repentance for breaking His laws and commandments, which allows us to become holy as He is.
- Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things.
- Obedience means submitting ourselves to the will of God as it is presented to us and living our lives accordingly.
Justification is the act through the merits of Christ that makes us free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws. Jesus justifies us when we put our lives in His hand.
Sanctification is the transformational process of the mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
Adoption is the act of grace where we are accepted into God’s family when Jesus redeems us and changes to be spiritually alive like God.
- Grace is a free and unmerited gift of love from the Heavenly Father, given through His Son, Jesus Christ, that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Resource
Glossary
None of this — privileges, pardon, justification, sanctification, adoption, communion, reconciliation — is man made. It only comes from God and by and through Him. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Why does God give all this to us freely? He does it to glorify Himself.
Spurgeon said all this makes us think. God isn’t a dictator Who makes us unwillingly do His Will.
Rather, God gives us free will to make our own decision to follow Him. Free will is the ability within us to make decisions, which determine actions that produce character.
God wants us to think things through. He wants us willing to “… come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9: 23 ESV).
Making the Connections
For some people, believing we can be reconciled with God is difficult to comprehend. Guthrie helped us with this. He wrote,
“Some things we are to believe on the simple authority of God’s Word. There are others, again, in which, ‘as face answereth to face in water,’ so the state of our hearts answereth to the statements of God’s Word.”
Resource
I take that to mean that we don’t have to understand the how or the why. We just have to take it on faith and believe we are reconciled with God.
It is the state of our hearts that bring in the doubts about our reconciliation and salvation. When we are in a bad state, the doubts flood in.
We just have to remember that we do not change God’s mind. God wants us to be saved and restored to Him.
It is all on us as to whether we make a sincere commitment to God.
How Do We Apply This?
- Take it on faith that we have been reconciled with God when we make a sincere confession to Him.
- Don’t break God’s established laws and commandments.
- Don’t avoid other disciples.
- Don’t associate with those who aren’t God’s disciples.
- Make the necessary changes to become more like Him.
- Come after Him, deny ourselves, take up our crosses daily, and follow Him (Lk. 9: 23).
Resource
Father God. We want our relationships with You restored. Help us to come after You, deny ourselves, take up our crosses daily, and follow You.
What do you think?
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