New

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (NIV)

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

¹⁹that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

²⁰We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

²¹God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

How should we "regard" one another?

Take a cruise through the political/talk networks and see how they answer that question, whether the commentator belongs to the far right or the far left.

Jesus said that even pagans love their friends.

How do we regard the people with whom we need "reconciliation," or those that we believe need it in their own lives?

How do we work with one another in the presence of sin that eats up our own lives and the lives of those around us?

How do we love without being judgmental, while also calling one another into higher, better ways of life?

Paul says it has to start with Jesus. It starts when we allow him into our own hearts and find ourselves "reconciled," or made right, with God.

The old creation dies away. The new creation rises. Sounds a whole lot like Easter.

From there, when that truly happens within us, and we allow the work of the Holy Spirit to draw us closer to God, day by day (yes, with frequent setbacks), we begin to learn how to really love one another.

Easy? No. Worth it? Absolutely.

Here's a video for the day that I think shows a picture of what church ought to look like. I know, that's a big stretch, right?

Let me put it differently...here's what "acceptance and reconciliation" looks like for "the world" when they've experienced rejection in a lot of other places.

What if the church reached out, loved and accepted the caricature people in this bar? Maybe the self-abusive drinking, and the brawling and the destructive stuff would stop. Maybe people could experience the real love of God in Christ.

Grace & Peace --

Adam

Song for the day --- what if "I love this bar" could become "I love this church?" A place for everybody ---- where love, not judgment, transforms their lives, in a way that a bar can never do. Good sense of humor Toby Keith. And church folks, what would happen at your place of worship if one of these characters walked in on Sunday morning.

If you'd hear the needle-scratching-a-record sound followed by crickets and an uncomfortable shuffling of feet, we might need to ask ourselves about why our church is really there.