This morning, the sun rose where I live at 7:47 AM. It will set at 4:39 PM. That means the sun will be above the horizon on this day for 8 hours and 53 minutes. Another often overlooked fact…the amount of daylight today is 1 minute and 36 seconds less than yesterday.

Light is important. Sunlight drives all of the cycles on earth, and it generates photosynthesis which produces food for all life on earth. We estimate the sun to be 93,000,000 miles from earth. No human mind can fully grasp what 93 million really means. Nor can we understand how sunlight reaches earth 8 minutes 30 seconds after it “leaves” the sun. We explain this with a term we’ve made: light speed. It’s another human estimate-that light travels at 183,000 miles PER SECOND!

 

As we can discern, everything you have read so far is true. We think it’s true. We have discovered these things about the sun because of the precise order of the sun’s orbit. We know about light speed because the speed of light is a discoverable constant. It never changes. The human mind can “figure” it out.

 

Let’s go back to the sunrise this morning. The photos show the glory and majesty of today’s rise above the horizon for the day. Think about the sun with me. We know a lot about it. But-Do we know why the sun is the size it is? Just a medium sized star, why is it this size? Why is it 93,000,000 miles distant with the earth in orbit around it, tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees?  Yes, we know some things about the sun. Just enough for us to be able to deceive ourselves that we know what there is to know about the sun. We try to explain its origin-a big bang. There are others. None can adequately explain how the sun came to be.

 

What if we said God made the sun…and everything else? For the rest of this blog-assume with me that God made the sun…and everything else including you and me. I mean, what are the chances God made all things? There are only two possibilities to answer this question:

1.       God made the sun…and everything else, including you and me.

2.       God did not make everything in existence…we have theories…but we are not sure.

It can be bluntly stated this way: God exists. OR God does not exist.

A 50% chance…do either of us want to take a risk and be wrong? Probability, and a look around us provide strong evidence that God exists. You will need to decide yourself. But until you have time to wrestle with God’s existence more independently… let me say-God exists. Again, let’s assume it for the rest of this blog.

 

Since we are agreed that God exists, we come to a new issue. It’s called sin. Sin is “deliberate disobedience to the known will of God.” Disobedience toward God leads to a terminal issue: death and separation forever from God. Sin not dealt with leads every human to a permanent place of anguish-hell. There is another truth about sin. We humans cannot fix our sin problem. Every human is sin filled by nature. That leads us to the biggest question…How can we be reconciled to God? How can we be restored to a relationship with God?

 

First, remember those who made the definition for the word reconcile were very likely NOT thinking about reconciliation with God. To be reconciled with God mean reconciliation beyond human relationships. While being reconciled with another human is part of God's call to us; to be reconciled with God is significantly greater. Remember...we are by nature in a feud with God-sin does that. It is an utterly senseless, ridiculous hostility that ends in eternal anguish and everlasting sorrow separated from God. This is much more than being restored in relationship to another person. In reconciliation with another person making peace depends on one of the two initiating the restoration.

 God initiates reconciliation with us.

Jesus knocks at the door of our hearts.

Jesus is the One who makes peace between Himself and us.

He is the Re-uniter.

Apart from Him we can do nothing.

This is the Supremacy of Jesus!

The question remaining-will we open the door of our heart to Jesus? Will we seek reconciliation?

Paul, the apostle tells us Jesus is God’s reconciliation plan.

 

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Colossians 1:19-20

 

Now we know…reconciliation depends on God and His plan was to send Jesus to be the “reconciler.”

 

Need more information, still feel that you aren’t so bad?

Put your name in the blank below…

__________ is an alienated enemy of God.

Try saying this sentence out loud so you hear the force of the words.

I’ll say it for us-You and I are alienated enemies of God.

We have to deal with this question...Does it seem wise to be an alienated enemy of God?

Really!? You, me, enemies of God?

 

That can't be good.

 

Think of it you and I are an enemy of the ONE who caused the sun to rise today and puts breath in our lungs and gives us a pulse. What power must God have to cause the sun to rise today? We can't let our status as God’s enemies be true. Yet, sadly, we are powerless to change our being an enemy of the ONE who created us. Sin does that-makes us powerless.

 

But...

 

But God reconciles us to Him through Jesus! Read what Paul wrote next in Colossians…

 

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—”Colossians 1:21-22

 

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!!!

In Jesus we are no longer enemies of God!

No blemishes...no accusations.

Reconciliation!

Want assurance?

Watch the next sunrise.