Message Of Reconciliation For The Most Noteworthy Sinners

You may have noticed, people come in all shapes and sizes. We have different hair color, eye color and skin color. We are so different from each other. Unless you have an identical twin, you may not even look like your siblings. We have individual appearances, attitudes, desires, needs and life experiences. With all these differences, what can tie us together?

During my teenage years, popular music connected my friends and I together with a common interest of driving our cars and listening to rock and roll music on our eight track tape players.

Because I was a teenager in the late 1960s, music from this era continues to impact my life. I recall popular song titles from this period including "Come Together" and "Get Together." These songs led us toward thinking about uniting and considering we are not so different from each other.

Well, that was 50 years ago. Today, in 2021, a simple thought of people coming together and being united in just about anything seems near impossible.

What if we could simply find a common thread to tie each of us together?

One "situation" tying us together is "we are all sinners." This situation unites us.

Christopher Columbus said this about his sinfulness, "I am a most noteworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely."

Being a "noteworthy sinner" may apply to many of us just as it did with Christopher Columbus.

Paul states in Romans 3:23, one thing we have in common; we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. This situation unites us, even those "noteworthy sinners."

Every person regardless of appearance, intelligence or personality has sinned, and falls short of the glory of God.

C.S. Lewis had this to say about this thing uniting us called sin:

• "Those who do not think about their own sins make up for it by thinking incessantly about the sins of others."

• "We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin."

• "Pride is the mother of all sins, and the original sin of lucifer."

The solution for our sinful nature resulting with some of us reaching the level of "noteworthy sinners," is "reconciliation."

We come together acknowledging we are sinners, but we also come together to accept an offer of reconciliation. God's offer to reconcile you and me to Him unites each of us.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17-19, it says: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!

"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."

Whatever stage of life you are in and whatever level of sinner you have become, including achieving the level of "noteworthy sinner" as Christopher Columbus mentioned, you have an offer of extreme proportions!

You and I have an opportunity for a relationship with our Creator through Jesus Christ.

You may have noticed, people come in all shapes and sizes. We are so different from each other. With all these differences, what can tie us together? Jesus Christ.

Dennis R. Hixson of Fayetteville is a husband, father, teacher, business leader, author and mentor. Currently Dennis teaches an adult Bible class at Prairie Grove Christian Church and Practical Biblical Application class at the Fayetteville Salvation Army, Drug and Alcohol Recovery Program. Send comments and questions to: [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.