When our Savior redeemed us, we became recipients of every spiritual blessing according to the letter of Paul to the Ephesians. In the work of reconciliation, we were imputed God’s righteousness through the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification. It is a process we must submit to so that we stay united with God, held by YAHSHUA’S work of reconciliation. We are now His workmanship in harmony with Him to get His work done on earth. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “We are God’s workmanship, recreated in Messiah YAHSHUA, that we may do those good works which God predestined for us, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). After our new birth, life’s purpose is redirected to please God, as a sign that we have been reconciled with Him. Being born again is the first step we take to become children of God. As a baby desires food, we also must hunger to know God, as Peter said, “Like newborn babies you should crave the spiritual Milk, that by it you may be nurtured and grow unto salvation” (2 Peter 2:2).
Spiritual maturity takes us higher closer to our God, Who so desires our relationship with Him. When we are born into God’s family and reconciled with Him, it does not stop there. We must grow into acquiring spiritual maturity, “so then, we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead” (Eph. 4:14). To know God, is to walk that straight line that leads us to Him in a constant and persistent way, growing from glory to glory. Knowledge of Him guides us to submission in greater desire to love and serve Him. The work of reconciliation embraces many aspects of the requirements of being a child of God. “Free from bondage from sin, all of us, as with unveiled face, continue to behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another” (II Cor. 3:18). Intwined in His love, the child of God experiences peace, His peace that passes all understanding, peace the world can never give; and joy flowing from His Holy Spirit to our spirit.
Reconciliation is a beautiful thing; it is peace connecting us to the Father, for “He tattooed our picture on the palms of each of His hands” and no one can snatch us from the hand of His Father (John 10). The assurance of our salvation performed on the cross, when our Savior gave up His life to render us His redemption, lies on the guarantee that He has secured it for eternity. The work of redemption is a covenant of blood; we received it through the work of reconciliation. This covenant, as the others, to be reality, it will need the two parties to perform their parts. YAHSHUA shed His blood- the price paid for our redemption; His blood was the ink He used to sign the covenant, saying, It Is finished! therefore, we must sign this document by denying ourselves, carrying our cross and following Him. That will fulfill the promises of eternal life. Paul declared, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). This verse summarizes how we must fulfill our part of the covenant, as our Lord fulfilled His, by giving up His life for us. Our part is to recognize that we have died with Him, therefore, we are dead unto ourselves; it is now YAHSHUA Who lives in us through His Holy Spirit. He has all the rights we have claimed of controlling our lives.
Reconciled, we submit our lives to God’s sovereignty. “For if any person is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come! … God reconciled us to Himself and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; It was He, who in Christ reconciled and restored the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses, but committed to us the message of reconciliation” (II Cor. 5). To God be the glory and praise, now and forever amen!
THINK ABOUT IT!
Light from the Word 