“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; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:17–21, ESV)
Living in a divided nation makes it difficult to be a positive witness of God’s reconciliation. We know that no matter our opinion, we’re going to tick off at least 1/2 of our neighbors. The same applies between believers. Within the church, the same divide exists. So how do we navigate these waters? And how do we maintain a witness the woos my friend into the Kingdom of God?
I wonder how we could affect our culture if we just re-shaped our conversation? What if we tried this?
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Talk about King Jesus more than President-Elect Trump.
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Talk about the Kingdom of God more than the nations of the world.
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Talk about the peace given by the Spirit of God more than the conflicts we revel in.
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Talk about the election of the church more than the election of our representatives.
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Talk about God’s work of redemption more than the various conspiracies that ruin trust.
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Talk about God’s plan of salvation more than we talk about our ways of fixing our world.
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Talk about God’s suffering love more than our hopes of people doing what we approve of.
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Talk about our common spiritual enemy more than how my neighbor offends me.
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Talk about our future hope more than our current frustrations.
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Lastly, talk to God about the needs of others more than we talk to one another about others.
It isn’t that we shouldn’t have strong opinions on what’s best for our nation, or even our world. But as believers in Christ, I’m thinking we shouldn’t lead with that. As ambassadors of Christ, we need to lead with the love, truth, grace, mercy and sovereignty of God who came to redeem the world.
There will be people who don’t like these topics of conversation too. That’s okay. At least we’ll be offending them with hope, joy, faith and love – just the way Jesus did!
What would you add to the list?
As always, thanks for reading… thanks for liking… thanks for commenting… thanks for sharing!
This is a great challenge to the church! It’s like hitting the reset button after a highly emotional election season.