God made the first move, now it’s yours
“We are therefore ambassadors for Messiah, as though God were making His appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Messiah, be reconciled to God.” 2Co 5:20 TLV
As I write this I am listening to a YouTube video of The Voice of One Calling performing Oceans, the worship from Hillsong. What makes this so unique is that this group of musicians is singing in Hebrew and Arabic, trading off the languages. The Voice of One Calling is a music collective that involves young messianic Jewish and Arab singers, songwriters, and musicians. Singing together, they live the reconciliation that is in Yeshua, reaching across barriers that go back to Ishmael and Isaac, thousands of years ago.
If your eyes stay dry, you may have a hardened heart – https://youtu.be/ZHW0uTpzsCM
In reality, through their actions they are saying “We are therefore ambassadors for Messiah, as though God were making His appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Messiah, be reconciled to God.”
In 2 Corinthians 5:16 – 21 the word reconciliation is repeated five times.
If this height of reconciliation is possible in Messiah, what is there unreconciled in your life that you are not at this time capable of seeing as possible in Yeshua? How far back does the principle of reconciliation go in the Bible?
Although this word “reconciliation” does not appear in the Torah (first five books of the Bible) the concept is wholly linked to the ideal of peace and peacemaking (shalom).
We see this peacemaking illustrated for us time and time again as we search the Hebrew Scriptures.
The Voice of One Calling takes a reconciliation that first occurred thousands of years ago and makes it relevant today because of the reconciliation we have received in Yeshua.
“Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Messiah and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” 2 Corinthians 5:18
We are reconciled to God if we are in Messiah, and this is the basis of reconciling to one another. We have Yeshua in common. So, as Paul writes in this text “so from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh,” (2 Cor. 5 16a) – those kinds of distinctions having been erased in Messiah.
What is this reconciliation that The Voice of One Calling makes a reality in our day?
“So Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, old and satisfied. Then he was gathered to his peoples. Then Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, next to Mamre,” Gen 25:8-9 TLV
Isaac and Ishmael reconciled to each other in what they had in common – their father Abraham. In his death they became reconciled in order to bury him together. There is a long time in between their conflict and separation in Genesis 21. Isaac is now 75 years old and Ishmael is 89. There’s a good fifty years in between and far much more than fifty years at least in the present separation of Jews and Arabs.
But that is the power of Messiah. And that is what makes this worship experience so absolutely precious. Descendants of Ishmael and Isaac reconciled in Messiah.
In human relations, Messiah taught that “if you are presenting your offering upon the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.” Matt 5:23 – 24 TLV
It is the offending party that makes the first move, and here we are told that the one who made the offense is to go to the person they offended and be reconciled.
That is between people, but in our relationship with God in Messiah, the order is completely different.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Messiah died for us. How much more then, having now been set right by His blood, shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him. For if, while we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.” Romans 5:8 – 10 TLV
It is God who made the first move.
Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, being set right with God came through repentance and offering, the guilty party bringing their offering to the priest. Sometimes that cost much in the loss of a lamb that might have been the foundation for a flock. Sometimes it took tremendous effort, walking to the Temple and leaving home, family and friends to stand before Holy God and asking him to accept the offering.
And it was visible to all around that someone was taking responsibility for their sin whenever they were seen walking into the temple with a sacrifice.
It is much easier to hide today, there is no visible lamb, no walking to the temple. But reconciliation becomes visible when those reconciled stand, sing and worship together the Lamb and the God who gave the Lamb.
He made the first move, Now I beg you on behalf of Messiah, be reconciled to God.
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Download lyrics for Voice of One Calling transliterated from Arabic and Hebrew here