Reconciled

My husband tried reconciling the checkbook yesterday.  He added the amounts of the checks that haven’t cleared and subtracted that from the total, but even still the amount he showed in our ledger didn’t match the bank’s balance.  He spent a good portion of the morning trying to get the two numbers to line up to no avail. 

The same is true in our relationship with God.  If attempt to reconcile ourselves to the perfect master of the universe, we will fall short.  We can try and try, but our efforts will be fruitless.  The gap is just too great.  But don’t despair.  Colossians 1:21, 22 says,

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”

Did you catch that?  God reconciles us.  That’s like my spouse going to the bank and telling the clerk that there is a $18,583 difference between the amount they show and our sum.  “Well, sir,” the teller says, “we can see where you erred, but we’ll go ahead and credit the difference to you anyways.”  I’d love for that to be the case, but of course it never will.  But with God it is entirely different.

God’s own son, Jesus Christ, came to Earth and remained sinless.  Jesus willingly went to the cross to take on our sin so we might be presented as holy, clean and free from accusation. 

My husband broke out into a happy dance when our checkbook finally matched the bank statement.  How much more should we celebrate that our very lives are  reconciled.