Agents of Reconciliation

Back in 1968, we realized that one does not gradually drift out of racism into reconciliation. It only happens with positive, proactive intentionality—beginning with a radical change of heart. It can’t be overstated enough that racism is not a skin problem, but a sin problem! When your heart changes, your will can resolve to change. Then and only then will we have the desire and will to be the ministers of reconciliation that God called us to as His disciples.

Both inside and outside God’s embassy called the Church, we are to be Christ’s ambassadors. It is through us that God is making His appeal: “Be reconciled to God” so that we can be reconciled to man (2 Corinthians 5:20).

When we cease that ministry of reconciliation, we are guilty of receiving “God’s grace in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1). That means that we are liv-

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ing like Jesus never died to reconcile us to God or to reconcile us to others.

Saints, it is time for us to step into these growing gaps of alienation with the kind of words and deeds of reconciliation that will result in renewed racial and social changes for God’s glory and the good of others.

Expressions of social hostility in America only testify to the spiritual separation from God and His love that is generating all of this alienation of brother against brother. This reminds us afresh of the accuracy of the Lord’s prophecy over two thousand years ago. In that teaching, Jesus gave a number of “signs of the times” to His disciples before He died on the cross.

But, just as Jesus accurately predicted, there has been a steady increase in the intensity of “nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (Matthew 24:7). As a reminder, when Jesus used the word nation, He was not talking about geopolitical nations as our maps have portrayed. The word in the original Greek is ethnos, from which we get the word “ethnic.” It means

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a group of people who are united by a common kinship, culture, or tradition.

So whenever possible, let’s step into the gap of alienation and racial conflict with the reconciliation of God’s love. It’s our only hope as a country and world. Politics cannot bridge these gaps, but the cross can!

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