I am an ambassador of Christ – Thursday, 25 January

“20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:20-12 NKJV
 
You are God’s chosen representative on earth. For God so loved your community, your workplace, your classmates, your employees and your family – that He sent them you. You hold the answer to their problems. He wants to reach out to people around you with the message of His unconditional love and grace.
 
As God’s duly appointed representatives we should not be timid or shy, and we should not hold back. We are representing God Almighty, who happens to be our Dad. We also have an amazingly powerful message which is only ever good news. There can be a temptation to feel inadequate or under-qualified to represent God and share this good news with others – but you are qualified!
 
God called youas His ambassador the moment you received Him. If God chose you to represent Him, then who is anyone else to think anything less of you? There may be times when you look at your mistakes or short-comings and feel like you’re not good enough to represent God, but think about it for a moment: He’s full of grace (John 1:14).  That means that God doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve (Psalm 103:10) and He does not remember our sin (Hebrews 10:17). Yes you have blown it; you’ve made mistakes and you probably could try harder, but the best person to represent God is someone who has needed and is enjoying His grace. We’ve all got problems and so don’t try to wear masks, pretending that everything is fine. Rather be real with people and let them know that you aren’t perfect but that His grace has forgiven you, freed you and empowered you.
 
Straight after Paul tells us that we are Christ’s ambassadors, he tells us that Jesus took our sin so that we could “become the righteousness of God” in Christ. Jesus took what we were (sinful) so that we could become what He is (right). “Righteousness” is basically right-standing with God. It means that you are now right with God and that He completely and unreservedly accepts you.  You may mess up in your actions and your thinking, but the spirit part of you (the inner-man) is 100% righteous because of Jesus. And because God is a Spirit, He deals with the real part of us – the spirit. In your spirit you are 100% righteous.

“So let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need.” Hebrews 4:16 TLB
 
The reason why we can come to God boldly and be confident of receiving from Him is because we’re righteous. It’s because “as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). As Jesus is right now, so is your inner-man right now. The core of you is righteous, pure, holy and blameless. Knowing this and being established in this truth of righteousness will give you the boldness and confidence you will need to be an effective ambassador of Christ. So don’t judge yourself according to some religious set of rules, or someone else’s expectations.  God has made you righteous and He sees you as righteous. Therefore, you are righteous. Be confident in your identity in Christ and it will overflow in giving you confidence as His ambassador. Our sufficiency is not of ourselves (2 Corinthians 3:5), rather it is in Christ in us (Colossians 1:27). We can represent Christ because He has made us righteous!