Jesus Christ and the 12 Steps.
eight step.
“made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to the all.”
Who are we and how can we achieve reconciliation?
Our soul is like a chest of drawers with at least five drawers. These are neutral and have no opinion. We can fill them as we wish, and they will not complain. We have memory, reason, conscience, imagination, and affections. The things we choose to keep and love will be the information our will uses to make decisions.
Conflict:
On our journey, we encounter people and situations we are not prepared for, and our reactions can be wrong, causing a rift with our friends or acquaintances. Taking the wrong path creates a battle with our conscience. The values we have received since childhood and our current actions generate a conflict. This causes us to build a wall within ourselves and before society. This is a type of personal conflict that can lead to a life marked by bitterness and disappointment. Everything is reflected.
Relationships:
A healthy and prosperous life is the result of good relationships. Man's first relationship is with God. When this relationship is not developed because one has grown up in an environment where He is not acknowledged, a spiritual void exists. This spiritual void is only filled by believing in God.
The second relationship I want to mention here is with God and His Word, which is the ordinances God has established. When we do not know God, this relationship becomes visible through the echo in our conscience, and it is our conscience that reveals to us that what we are doing is wrong.
The third relationship is with the outside world, which offers us everything we want. Our choices shape who we are and, therefore, our lives. By accepting God, He asks us to leave behind what is harmful and contrary to His Word, inviting us to live a healthy and happy life. Thus, our relationship with the world changes: we seek to be a light, reflecting God's love and compassion.
Our fourth relationship that I want to look at here is with Authority, and we experience it in all areas and times of our lives: with our parents, with our teachers, with our bosses at work, as citizens and participants in a society full of rules. The keyword for authority is submit: submitting to our authorities will give us peace and security in our lives. Submission is not servility.
So, when we reach the eighth step, we will see that the first reconciliation we must seek is with God. Through Jesus Christ, we are reconciled to God, and by having peace there, our relationships begin to change. Our soul begins to receive the right information and to discard what harms us and inclines us toward evil.
2. The ministry of reconciliation.
II Corinthians 5:18-20. In this passage, reconciliation is mentioned five times.
a. Cause, end, and means of reconciliation: God reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ.
b. Collaborators in the ministry of reconciliation: “He gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
c. Content of the gospel of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.
d. Workers of the word of reconciliation: He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
e. Call to reconciliation: we implore you, on Christ’s behalf, to be reconciled to God.
When God sent his Son, he did so to reconcile the world to himself. Not counting people’s sins against them, he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation"
Work: Reconciliation is the effect that God produces in our lives to change enmity and unbelief into faith and love. This work breaks down the division between men: Gentiles and Jews. Eph. 2:16. A right relationship with God brings with it a right relationship with men. Matt. 5:23, 24.
From God's perspective, as Christians, we freely give what we have received by grace. In the same way that we forgive our debtors because God has forgiven us, we also seek reconciliation because Christ has reconciled us. It is an act of love which we are now connected to the source of love.
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to
change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."