Colossians 1:21–22 (NIV84)
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 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—
What? It’s my fault? Wait! I am only human! I mean, what does God expect of me. How good do I have to be? Let’s take a moment to realize something significant to our future. That something is that it is our fault that we were alienated from God. Before we can go forward to the good news, we have to accept the reality that we did evil things, we had evil thoughts, and those thoughts and deeds alienated us from God. Someone may say, but I had a sin nature! It really wasn’t my fault. Sorry, that doesn’t work. Until we come to terms with the truth of this word, that we were alienated and were “enemies in our minds” toward God, we can’t get as happy as is possible. After all, if we were “a good person,” then our salvation is not very incredible. I submit that our own conscious convicts us. Even if we don’t know or think the 10 Commandments are to be kept, we couldn’t even maintain the thinking and lifestyle that we wanted to. Our minds knew we were doing wrong, and we stayed away from God because of it. People have said, “I didn’t murder or rape anyone,” yes, but did you perfectly follow God’s direction? Of course we didn’t. We are human. Which means we do have a proclivity towards messing up, sinning, missing the mark of God.
Can I digress for one sentence? God’s standards were for our good. The creator of our beings knew exactly how we would operate best in all things, and gave us a blueprint for life. Okay, two sentences.
The reconciliation is so much sweeter when you know it was your fault. That your mind couldn’t even come close to God, that your evil behavior alienated you from God, BUT, He did something incredible. This is the get really happy moment. He reconciled us. He made us holy. We are without defect to Him. We are free from any accusation before Him! Wow! Happy thoughts, feet, hands and heart! We did something wrong, and God stepped in and made it right. Jesus took our punishment. He brought forgiveness and reconciliation the only way it could come, through the death of a perfect human being. Jesus was that human.
This means that we are free from living like we used to live. We are not alienated from God. We are not enemies in our minds. We don’t have a “bent” toward evil behavior. First, let’s get super thankful! Happy! Then let’s never call ourselves what we WERE! Let’s call ourselves who we are, reconciled, holy, without blemish and free from accusation! I am free from anyone accusing me, especially me. Wait! What if I do something wrong? Then I can be accused, right? Nope. Jesus died once for all. We stand in perfection before God Himself. That is how He sees us. Whoever would accuse you can talk to your Daddy.