Jesus reconciled us

Article for July 20, 2025

Colossians 1:21–23 21You, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. 

There are many people that have come from families that were weak in their faith and in a lot of these cases lost their faith.  But to understand this in the light of our Lord Jesus, these people lost their faith through watching those whom they thought to have great faith mess up.  These faithful fakes messed up their lives by doing sinful acts not in line to what Christians are supposed to do.  These are the ones who pretend to be Christians and ridicule those who seem to be nonbelieving sinners.  These are false livers.

If we are true Christians and true believers in Christ, then we must admit that we sin as much if not more than the unbeliever.  So, what is it to be a Christian?  Is it that we no longer sin?  Christianity is not works and deeds, though we as true believers should have good works and do good deeds.  It is also not that we are sinless for everyone sins and telling people you don’t sin is a sin.  Being a Christian is realizing that Jesus Christ died for our sins, not that we deserve Jesus’ forgiveness, but that Jesus chose to forgive us even in His death on the cross.

Being a Christian is being able to take up ones cross which is to take responsibility for one’s sin.  Christians admit their sin and recognize that Jesus died for the sinners and not for the righteous.  Knowing the only righteous one is Jesus Christ, we also must believe He died for our sins because we do not know how to gain the strength to not sin.

Yes, we need to continuously work hard daily killing the old Adam.  Yes, we also need to daily put on the new which is Christ’s righteousness.  We know as Christians this is not always easy to do, killing the old Adam and putting on the new righteousness of Christ.  We just don’t know how to get rid of our sinful nature and we should also know we cannot use our sinful nature as an excuse.

Jesus reconciled us, adopted us back into the family of God.  This reconciliation is the forgiveness we received through the suffering and death of Jesus who was nailed to a sinner’s cross.  That is, Jesus hung and died on a criminal’s cross.  This makes us who sin criminals.  The cross was meant for the convicted.  Though we are convicted of sin the difference is that we are forgiven criminals, we are forgiven sinners.

Colossians 1:24–26 24Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.

I would like to say that I became a minister to help spread the Good News, but I can’t because I really did not understand the good news until I became a pastor.  That might seem strange to some, but the truth is I believed in Jesus Christ, but I did not truly understand it.  Truthfully, the good news was not given to anyone’s understanding until Jesus chose to die for our sins. 

Now that I do understand the gospel, it is certainly why I remain a pastor.  However, I can only remain a pastor if called by you and my Lord Jesus Christ who has allowed me to be here and serve you.  I believe that becoming a pastor has helped me in my faith more than I could have thought or wished for.  And my faith is growing still.

I do rejoice at being called to be a pastor, but there are certainly times I feel like I’m being cursed by being called as a pastor.  I feel the suffering of Paul and the other disciples as they went out to spread the Good News to the many and again to those who have already heard.  And in truth I rejoice being a messenger of God when someone tells me that I helped them.  That is, I helped them in word and deed.

The gospel is much more than just being forgiven by God as God’s forgiveness is far greater than our own forgiveness for one another.  We forgive each other out of love to keep our relationships together.  God too wants to keep a relationship of love with each of us, but His relationship stems to eternal life and a relationship with Him that we love Him as much as He loves us.  The greatness of having a God of grace and mercy is a means to rejoice in our God who want us for Himself forever and ever.

Colossians 1:27–29 27To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. 

This mystery of glory is the love of God for His creation, and we are His creation.  The mystery is even though we have separated ourselves at times from our God, our God still loves us and perfected the means to keep us reconciled to Him.  Jesus is the means of God’s reconciliation who bought for us through His suffering, death, and resurrection membership back into the family of God.  Not that we earned salvation but that our creator loves us to life, life eternal.  Amen.

Written by Pastor Curtis May.