By Pastor Dave
My wife just reconciled our checkbooks with the bank statements. She found a few errors that I had made and made the corrections, down to the penny. Reconcile means two things are brought into agreement, they balance, they are made even.
The Bible says in First Corinthians Chapter 5 verses 17, 18, 19 that God reconciled us to Him. What does that mean? Our ledger and God’s accounting did not line up. We had debts that were not paid. Our sinful life, our sinful thoughts, our sinful actions are all debts we can not pay. But God! This section of scripture tells us that God balanced our ledger. He paid our debt. Jesus took our debt of sin upon Himself and carried it to the cross and paid your debt and mine in full. On the cross Jesus said, “It is finished”, meaning paid in full, no debt remaining. God balanced the books, our ledgers are now reconciled.
But you have to receive that reconciliation. You have to humble yourself and acknowledge that your ledger is in need of reconciliation, you have to see yourself as you truly are. We all are lost and in debt to our sin without Christ. We all need to accept His offer of salvation. We all have to believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and we will be saved. You must believe in your heart. It is not enough to say you believe in God. You must repent which means stop your evil sinful life (turn from it) and allow God to help you live a godly life (turn to God). You must let God, through Jesus Christ, balance your ledger and reconcile you to Him.
If you want a balanced ledger with God you can say this simple prayer (if you mean it in your heart), “Dear Lord Jesus, I acknowledge that I am indebted to you by my sin, my evil actions and thoughts. I believe you died on the cross, took my sins and paid the debt I owed. I want to be reconciled to you now. Come into my life and be my Savior. Amen.”