The Ministry of Reconciliation part 5- Not in Vain

Prepare Your Heart:  Read Hebrews 12:12-29.  In prayer consider His holiness, consider your calling.  As verse 15 says, is there a root of bitterness in you that causes trouble in your relationships?

Ladies, thank you so much for coming along this far with me on our journey toward becoming the ministers of reconciliation that God has designed and called us to be.  Have you accepted His ministry so far?  What results have you seen?  I pray that you will know that even taking small steps will lead you in the right direction.

By now you should be very familiar with chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians.  My husband has recently started a memory verse memorization with my kids at home and guess what the first verse he chose was, 2 Corinthians 5:17!  I knew where it was when they started to read it as I have been reading it so much.  I hope you’ve had the same experience and have seen the practical outworking of His word in your life.

Today we will shift our focus slightly to the next 13 verses after chapter 5 in chapter 6.  As God led me in learning about the ministry of reconciliation, I was stilled by a phrase in verse 1 of this chapter—we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.  While reading Jonah a few days ago (I might be teaching this book next; please vote on the poll in the top left of the blog to weigh in with your interests) I also saw this verse: Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs (Jonah 2: 8 NIV).  If you are reading my blog and studying, chances are you have already received the grace and reconciliation we have been studying about and are a Christ follower.  (If you don’t understand what being a Christian is or are not sure that you are one, please comment and give me your email…I’d love to get in touch with you!  I’ll be sure to delete your private information once I have it if you are willing to share it. )  So how do we now live with this life- giving word and not live in vain?  What is vanity?  Ecclesiastes describes this type of life as worthless, meaningless, and trivial.  June is the time of year for celebrations of graduation.  Do you remember that stage in life, all the dreams you had of your future?  No one planned or desired on living life without purpose.  Yet if we aren’t careful, God’s work says we can live this way, even with His truth inside us!

I believe that our ministry is for those who haven’t heard, as we have studied, and also for those who have heard as we are about to discover.  After looking at our tendency to ignore the gospel in our own lives, we will look in further studies about how the word of reconciliation can bring peace  our relationships --specifically to marriage, parenting, friendships, and fellowship with other believers.   

1.        Read 2 Corinthians 6:1-13.  In one sentence how could you summarize this passage?

2.       Who is the believer to work with? 

3.       List the hardships you find that await a believer.  This passage describes that despite those things occurring, how are we to respond?  List those qualities as well. 

4.       Beginning in verse 8-10 there is a series of opposites written.  List those and reflect on your own life.  When has that been true for you?  I find many times the Christian life is discovering that often the way you think things work turns out to be the thing that is really destroying the peace you seek.  Our enemy is a great deceiver. 

5.       Why should you strive to live as not causing offense (see verse 3)?  Remember the gospel is offensive to some no matter how you act or what you say and we are not to shrink back from declaring truth because of that (Matthew 11:6, Romans 9:33, 1 Peter 2:8).   The offense Paul is talking about here is described in 1 Corinthians 10:32: Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks of to the church of God; just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved. 

The One Thing:  I love the word imagery in verses 11-13 in this chapter.  Paul has opened his heart wide to them, been vulnerable and noticed they are restrained.  He begs them to return his emotional commitment.  God has been so good to me in this study in showing me as I teach you what I myself need to learn.  I am struggling in my relationships with other believers to keep my heart open wide as I have recently been deeply wounded in some of my closest relationships.  Know that I am not asking you to do what I am not willing to.  How do we then live as this passage says as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things (verse 10)?  By not restraining ourselves in our own affections (verse 5).  It is in our nature to withdraw when cut, to pull away.  Yet that is not grace, for our example is Christ and when He was wounded for our transgressions He did not shrink back from His ministry to reconcile us to the Father.  Let us follow in His courageous example and fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2) .  Journal about which relationships you have shrank back from and ask God what He wants to you to do to stop restraining your emotions in that relationship.