Imagine a broken relationship.

• husband / wife
• parent / child
• business partners.

That’s us and God, back then, once upon a time. Complete alienation.One is not talking to the other. On one side, God: Perfection, cleanness, purity, brilliant righteousness, awesome creativity. love.

But all that was viewed as an insurmountable relationship obstacle. And so, it is turned into an affront.

“You are so good just to make me look bad,” we said.
“I can never measure up.”
“You want me to feel inferior.”

And so our mind is made up. “God is my enemy. God hates me.” What other way could we possibly view this perfection? Bent as we are.And then our behavior reflects our thoughts.

Whatever God says, we will do the opposite. Because that’s what do to an enemy, with an enemy. But because God is good, doing the opposite is evil.

We do evil.

What would be great would be some reconciliation.The relationship restored. But immediately, there is a problem. 

When we use the word “reconcile” we imagine a conversation that says,
“I’m sorry. I got upset.”
“But I did too. I shouldn’t have reacted that way.”

Reconciliation means both parties move.When God is one of the parties, all pure and perfect, God can’t move to the middle. And we can never right the wrong. We were enemies. We acted like God.

How can that be undone? But now, the basis of the relationship has changed completely. How did this happen? It was all God’s doing.

God addresses the impasse. God together are pleased to have all the fullness of God dwell in Christ. And he makes peace
-cleanses us
-makes us without blemish
-declares us free from accusation

But it costs. His blood, his physical body.He walks into the impasse, across the relationship divide. He makes peace, not by finding compromise but by forgiving us, in himself.

So what do we do? We continue to believe. Standing on the foundation Focused on the hope Certain that my relationship with God will never be grounded in what I did to earn it.

And now, because that relationship is restored, we can look at those other relationships, the ones we imagined were broken, because they actually are, we can look at those and think about our relationship with God.

(here’s the original: Colossians 1:19-23)