“…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.“

2 Corinthians 5:19

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October 15, 2025

Jesus’s call of repentance and forgiveness leads to a restored relationship with God. It is a relationship that changes all our other relationships. Jesus taught us that we are to forgive others and lead them to the forgiveness offered by God.

Created in December 1984, The Center for Peace and Justice on the campus of my alma mater, George Fox University, helps people understand and manage the many forms of conflict in the world. The center’s goal is “to nurture agents of hope—people who embody in their citizenship, careers, and daily lives God’s promised gifts of peace and reconciliation.”

We are to be those “agents of hope,” Christ’s agents of peace and reconciliation.

 We are to forgive as we have been forgiven (Luke 11:4), love when we are hated (Matthew 5:43-48), bless when we are cursed (Luke 6:28), give away what we hold dear (Matthew 19:16-28), and die that we might live (Matthew 16:24-25) all in order to demonstrate that we have been changed, that we have been redeemed, that our relationship with God has been restored, and that our relationship with others has been transformed.

We are peacemakers, restoring relationships. We proclaim the good news of the gospel, the transforming truth that there is now a way back to God, a way back home.

For more than a decade, Greyhound Bus Lines has partnered with the National Runaway Safeline organization to provide free bus tickets for runaway youth to return home. The organization gets roughly 30,000 calls per year from youth and people concerned about them. In 2020 alone, 432,000 people visited their online forum (Chapin Hall, chapinhall.org).

We live in a world filled with people who have run away from a relationship with God. We, as ambassadors of Christ, need to show them through our changed lives, and tell them through the good news of the gospel, that there is better way to live and a home for them to return to. We have their ticket home, secured by Jesus Christ.

Questions for reflection and discussion:

  • How has your relationship with others been changed by your relationship with Christ?
  • What does it mean to be God’s representatives, His ambassadors, in the world?
  • As you consider the radical call Jesus made to those who wish to follow Him, how should this change the way you live?

Church Reading Plan: 1 Kings 18; 1 Thessalonians 1