A Strive for Reconciliation

Throughout the months of January and February, we have been focusing at GRCMS on how God calls us to reconcile through all things. Last week in chapel, Mr. Julian Newman spoke to us about what it means to handle the truth. He helped us look back at our history as a country with a lens of racial reconciliation.  

Today this has made me think more deeply about forgiveness versus reconciliation. What is the difference between the two? God calls us to confess our sins toward each other, to pray for our brothers and sisters, and to restore our relationships with one another. Not only are we to forgive each other, but we are also to reconcile. Reconciliation involves forgiveness but goes far beyond. When I forgive someone, there is no guarantee that we will have a restored friendship. True reconciliation, however, INCLUDES a restored relationship. It indeed requires both parties to come to the table and be willing to participate in restoring the relationship.  

It is my prayer that we can strive for reconciliation in all areas of life. Our middle school staff and teachers work with students to model and encourage them to not only see areas where reconciliation needs to take place, but also how to move forward in the act of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:18-21  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Blessings!

—Sara Seth