2 Corinthians 5:18-20 (NLT) - “And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’”

“I believe the call of God is sort of a trap - He pushes us in and then closes the door. We can’t just run in and out. God’s call is when God nails your feet to the floor…One proof you’re really called of God is that you can never get away from that call…You can say no to God’s call, but you can never be at peace without obeying it…So God’s call is not easily escaped. It is clear. God makes the vision plain. He does not give a fuzzy picture.

“So if you haven’t heard the message, if you haven’t heard that call, don’t go! Don’t move, don’t run, don’t go into the community, don’t go into the ghetto, don’t go anywhere unless you have a clear call of God. But if you have heard God’s call, run!

“When God calls, He calls us to a hazardous mission…When God calls, He doesn’t invite us to a picnic. He calls us to go to a stiff-necked, rebellious, stubborn people. Our success is not measured by fame; it is not measured by popularity contests; it is not measured by how many people raise their hands; it is not measured by how many souls were won today. God doesn’t call us to that kind of task. Rather, God calls us to faithfulness. ‘Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life’ (Rev. 2:10). That’s the key - faithfulness to God’s call…God calls us, He locks us in, but never leaves us alone. He goes with us. He sustains us. That is the only assurance we have.

“God never calls us to do something we can do in our own strength. He always calls us to get in over our heads - to move out to where we’ll have to either depend on His power or sink” (John M. Perkins, With Justice For All, p.47-49).

At the end of the video Rev. Perkins asks himself these questions: “Have I made Him worthy? Have I made Him so wonderful that people would accept Him? Will they accept Him because of the way I have lived in my life? Did I make Him beautiful?”

What are you asking today? What is most important about your life, your conversations, your serving and working, your studying and playing? Is it Jesus? Is it the love of Jesus being experienced and revealed through you? This is what matters most in the midst of all we do…Jesus so wonderful, so beautiful that others will accept Him. Today let us pray that God will have His full way in making His appeal through us to those He loves so much. We speak for Him. We are boxed in, controlled and compelled by His wonderful and powerful love. Let’s pray deeply these next 24 hours that our lives will be the wonderful message of “Come back to God.”

-TR

1 John 4:9-12 (NLT) - “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love-not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”

“Community brings out the best in us. And the worst. Community life brings a painful revelation of our limitations, weaknesses and darkness; the unexpected discovery of the monsters within us is hard to accept…”

“If the church is to be a radically reconciled community, it must be a fellowship where we are so secure in each other that we can share our feelings honestly without fearing rejection. We must create an environment where we confess our sins to each other, ask each other for forgiveness…And we must be able to lovingly confront one another and be willing to be confronted with our own sins.

“Reconciliation, you see, is not a warm feeling; it is love, and love always acts. Reconciliation is a unity of heart, mind and purpose. Our reconciliation is reveled and completed as we work hand in hand to reach out to bring others into fellowship with God and with us.”

“The believing fellowship must be a living demonstration of the love that God gives us for one another…To do the work of reconciliation, then, we must begin by being a reconciled fellowship…Our love for each other gives credibility and power to our witness…We must be a reconciled fellowship on mission. And our mission is to bring others into fellowship with God and with us” (John M. Perkins, With Justice For All, p.148-149, 143-144).

“Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.” The church is a ‘come-back’ people. We are always coming back into the reconciling love of God. This reconciliation is what defines us and what identifies us as God’s people. At the core of who we are together is God’s reconciliation. Therefore, this is the core of what we do and what will always keep us together and keeping us growing together. Deeper than our diversity is God’s reconciliation.

Let’s thank God for this central reality in our lives together. Let’s ask Him to increase this understanding and way of living together so that we will reveal how wonderful God’s love is - that His love will be brought to full expression in and through us.

-TR

1 John 1:8-9 (NLT) - “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

Matthew 6:14-15 (Message) - “In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.”

“Now God was opening my eyes to a new and better strategy - seeking reconciliation. I could not bring justice for other people. As a Christian, my responsibility was to seek to be reconciled. Then out of that reconciliation, justice would flow.

“Affirmative action, integration, and so might be useful, but they alone were not justice. Real justice would never be achieved by passing laws or going to court. ‘Many seek the ruler’s favor, but justice for man comes from the Lord’ (Prov. 29:26). True justice could come only as people’s hearts were made right with God and God’s love motivated them to be reconciled to each other.

“Now that God had enabled me to forgive the many whites who had wronged me, I found myself able to truly love them. I wanted to return good for evil. In my own life God had cleansed away bitterness and hatred and replaced it with love. If He could do that in my life, He could do it in other people too - whether black or white” (John M. Perkins, With Justice For All, p.111).

1 John 1:9 says that if we get real with our sin to God, God is faithful and just to forgive us and change us. We all need forgiveness, even the most broken among us. God in His mercy and tender love is so willing to welcome us back and walk with us through this. He always wants things to be right and vibrant with Him and with one another. “Come back to God” in the depths of His forgiveness.

These next 24 hours, let forgiveness be central to your heart and relationship with the Lord and His people. Ponder the depths of God’s forgiving love for you, search your heart for the unresolved anger and bitterness from past hurts or disappointments. Ask the Holy Spirit to search out the pride, prejudice, and preferences that have slipped under the radar or become so tightly weaved into our lives that we can’t recognize it. And ask the Lord for His mercy and forgiveness. Reconciling love is on the move; let us be touched by God’s forgiveness so we can move with this wonderful message of reconciling love.  Holy Spirit come and accomplish this deep and much needed work of forgiveness and new beginnings in us!

-TR

2 Corinthians 5:16-17 (NLT)- “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

“I began to see with horror how hate could destroy me - destroy me more devastatingly and suddenly than any destruction I could bring on those who had wronged me. I could try and fight back, as many of my brothers had done. But if I did, how would I be different from the whites who hate?

“And where would hating get me? Anyone can hate. This whole business of hating and hating back. Its what keeps the vicious circle of racism going. The Spirit of God worked on me as I lay in that bed [hospital bed]. An image formed in my mind. The image of the cross - Christ on the cross. It blotted out everything in my mind. This Jesus know what I had suffered. He understood. An He cared. Because He had experienced it all Himself…His enemies hated. But Jesus forgave. I couldn’t get away from that.

“The Spirit of God kept working on me and in me until I could say with Jesus, ‘I forgive them, too.’ I promised Him that I would ‘return good for evil,’ not evil for evil. And He gave me the love I knew I would need to fulfill His command to me of ‘love your enemy’…Because of Christ, God Himself me and healed my heart and mind with His love.

“The Spirit of God helped me to really believe what I had so often professed, that only in the love of Christ is there any hope for me, or for those I had worked so hard for. After that, God gave me the strength and motivation to rise up out of my bed and return to Mendenhall and spread a little more of His love around” [John M. Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down, p.194-195].

How differently we know him now! It is amazing that God loves us so much, that he would send Jesus to die for our sin and shame, and that he would give us his Spirit to keep this new life growing and active in the love of God. It is this reconciliation that we need daily in our own lives so that God can reveal the sin, our own hatred and prejudice, our laziness and pride - all ways the keep the distance from others and our deep need for reconciliation. Let’s ask the Lord to open our eyes to the hidden ways that have hindered our love and reconciliation with others. And let’s ask him to change us and transform us into the likeness of Christ. May the fierce love of God work deeply in us.

-TR

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (NLT) - “…Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.”

“The seven of us [John & Vera Perkins and their five young children] moved into a little three-bedroom house with Vera Mae’s grandmother. Christian friends in California had pledged to send $75 to $100 a month, but that certainly wouldn’t feed a family of seven. So right away I started to work, cutting wood and picking cotton. At first, people were embarrassed that I was having to do this kind of work alongside them.

“Though I didn’t realize it at the time, those experiences were building the foundation for our ministry. The people were seeing that I really was one of them. I was not an outsider. I was not a ‘have’ giving handouts to the ‘have nots.’ I had given up a good job, a big comfortable house, and the freedom and respect I had enjoyed in California to return to the poverty, discomfort and oppression I had left behind 13 years earlier. I was choosing to become a ‘have not’ in order to take my people the gospel. I was once again becoming one of them. To reach my people, I was following the same pattern Jesus had used to reach me. ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich’ (2 Cor. 8:9)’” [John M. Perkins, With Justice For All, p.63-64].

“He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.”

Who are you becoming and why? What compels you each day? What wakes you up, what moves you, and what makes you do what you do? Is it the love of Christ? God has saved us from ourselves, from our old ways, our self-preserving ways, and our self-justifying ways. But why? So that we may move into the lives of others, into their struggles and disappointments, and into their fears and distractions so that they can know how much God loves them. Today, let’s ask God to box our lives into the love of God so that we will be available, moveable, and more like Jesus for them.

-TR