The final week study in February, with it's theme of love, is Week 4 - Love Yourself.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation.
The old has passed away;
behold, the new has come.
All this is from God,
who through Christ reconciled
us to himself
and gave us the ministry
of reconciliation…
~ 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 (ESV)
What impressed me so much in reading this verse is how this is all God's doing - "all this is from God." He reconciled, he didn't count our sins against us, he laid our sins on his Son - so that we could receive his righteousness. God is the one who does it, does it all.
The book I was altering for the journal had a photo of a cathedral, which put me in mind of St. Teresa of Avila's image of the soul as
The Interior Castle. And that's the image I took up, using the deep blues and purples for the depths of my being, and God's light coming into it. Surrounded by the red of the heart. The words are from my journal as I thought about the total gift - that it was all done for me, given to me, I don't have to do anything but receive it.
I loved the image of the Interior Castle, but the picture spoke to me - and as soon as I put it on I knew it was right. I loved that image of myself as a baby in this context, because it looks as if I'm "telling my troubles" as babies do. I sometimes feel that I spend a lot of time "telling my troubles" to God, and I wonder if it's to much, if I spend too much time doing it. But that's not how it is. When children come in their distress - that's interaction time, that's loving time. And in the depths of our hearts, where we're most vulnerable, most hurting - God gives us his attention, and his love, and his care.
The facing page continued the theme of the heart - our heart reaching up to God, and God's heart reaching down to us. I looked up "reconciled" in the Revell Bible Dictionary, and it brought up the pagan view, which is really the natural view. Here, we have to do something to make God look on us with favor. We have to sacrifice so that God will be happy with us. In other words, we have to do something so that God will change in reaction to us.
But now all things are new. Here God is the one who gives, who sacrifices, so that we will change. We are the ones who need to change our viewpoint, to receive the sacrifice, to be reconciled. It seems almost sacrilegious to think that way. But that's what Paul is saying:
So we are ambassadors who represent Christ.
God is negotiating with you through us.
We beg you as Christ's representatives,
"Be reconciled to God!"
God caused the one who didn't know sin
to be sin for our sake
so that through him
we could become the righteousness of God.
~ 2 Corinthians 4:20-21 (CEB)
It's always impressed me, the words used in the different translations: beg, plead, implore, etc. The urgency, the humility, the passion:
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ,
as though God were pleading through us:
we implore you on Christ's behalf,
be reconciled to God.
~ 2 Corinthians 5:20 (NKJV)
It's so easy to fall back into the old way of thinking - that I have to do something to make God look on me with favor. I have to keep propitiating him so he won't be angry with me. I feel I need to sacrifice so he won't be angry with me.
But God says the sacrifice has already been made. He has already accepted the sacrifice Christ made for me. In his death, that part of me died too. And now he wraps me in Christ's righteousness and anoints me as his representative.
I don't have to do anything. I just need to accept what he has already done for me. And keep my eyes on him, spend time with him, follow him.
What we love we shall grow to resemble.
~ Bernard of Clairvaux
