Column: Christ offers forgiveness, reconciliation and hope

Over the past two weeks we have considered Jesus’ mission to demonstrate God’s love for us and to communicate the moral principles and conduct that God finds acceptable. This week the focus is on Jesus’ ability to bring new life to everyone who believes in him. As John 1:4 declares, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”

John 1:3 teaches that Jesus played an important part in the creation of the physical universe and all life that exists on earth. But the story does not end there. Jesus came to make a way for our broken relationship with God to be restored. That restored relationship is not limited to our lifetime but continues into eternity.

Scripture describes humanity apart from God as lost, blind and spiritually dead. Jesus explained another part of his mission in Luke 19:10: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” The angel’s announcement to Mary proclaimed, “He will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus came to provide the way for us to repair our relationship with God.

His birth demonstrates that God cares for us. His life and ministry show what a life well lived looks like. His death provides the means for God to forgive us and restore us to fellowship with him. As Romans 5:10 explains, “We were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” Jesus is alive and well, and through his Word and Spirit he points our lives in the right direction.

Jesus was instrumental in the creation of the world. He is also the instrument of the “new creation” that happens in our hearts when we recognize who he is and receive him as our Savior and guide, as John 1:12 promises. “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

— Pastor Ray Martin, Retired Great Trail Church of God, Minerva