Tuesday, November 8, 2016

“Ambassadors"


"Ambassadors"
     
   

    We represent our Lord Jesus Christ in everything we do.  In our private lives, we seek to live in such a manner that when we go public, as it were, we will be ready to express attitudes, demeanor, words, and actions that reflect the true Light of our Savior.  In the presence of others, we seek to realize that we either accurately the character and nature of Christ, or we give forth a distorted image of who He is and what He does.

   "We are ambassadors for Christ" (II Corinthians 5:20).

   The Apostle Paul wrote these words in reference to himself and Timothy (the co-author of II Corinthians, and five other of Paul's epistles).  However, the truth of ambassadorship involves every born again believer in the Lord Jesus.  We take His name when we believe, identity ourselves with Him in baptism, and thereafter live every moment of our lives as His representatives on the earth.  This constitutes both a blessed privilege, and a solemn responsibility.  The glorious and completely undeserved calling provides meaning, purpose, and mission in all things.  For this, we bow in amazed wonder and joyous anticipation.  However, we also bow in the solemn awareness that we can bear a false image of the Lord Jesus if we succumb to the temptation to act in a manner that belies His character and nature.  People will either see Christ as He is in us, or they will see a false representation of Him.  

   This blessed truth sends us forth in joy, but also in seriousness.  God privileges us to represent the Lord Jesus as His ambassadors.  We must represent Him well.  The glory of God and the needs of people await our service as the lamps of Christ's light.  Will they see Him as He is, and thus be drawn to Him? (John 12:32).  Or will we reflect poorly on our Lord? (Proverbs 30:9).  No middle ground exists.  Having taken His name and identified ourselves with Him, we either serve as faithful or unfaithful ambassadors.  Glorious privilege.  Solemn responsibility.  Holy calling.

"Now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light."
(Ephesians 5:8)
"Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."
(II Thessalonians 1:11-12)

Weekly Memory Verse
    The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
(Proverbs 9:10)


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