By John Posey, June 26, 2024

You’re not here to make money and take care of your family. You certainly are doing that, but that’s not your purpose. That’s not your “why”. The big why is we are here to reconcile men to God. We were reconciled to God, and now we are called into the ministry of reconciliation.

 Reconciliation — Restoration of friendship; resolution of conflict.

 19 It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but canceling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor) (2 Corinthians 5:19 AMP).

 God has canceled our sins through Christ and is committed to us. He’s given us the message to go and tell the story of freedom and reconciliation.  Tell the story that we now have favor with God through Jesus.  This happened 2,000 years ago, and yet people are still in bondage to Satan.

 This reminds me of our recent national holiday called Juneteenth.

 1863

 Jan. 1 — President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as the Civil War is in its third year. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the Confederate states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” However, it will take more than two years to fully implement the decree in Confederate states.

1865

 April 9 — The Civil War effectively ends when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

 June 19 — Two months after Lee’s surrender in Virginia, 2,000 Union troops arrive in Galveston, Texas, the western edge of the Confederacy. They deliver the long overdue news that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in Texas are free. It also marks the last stop for Union soldiers marching across the South, freeing enslaved people. The celebration comes to be called Juneteenth, a portmanteau of the month and day.

 Dec. 6 — Congress ratifies the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in the U.S., providing that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

 So many of the slaves did not know that they were free. Even though this happened two years before. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery completely.

 The soldiers were messengers who came to enforce the emancipation proclamation. We are soldiers in the Lord’s army, and we have been given the message of freedom from the control of Satan and reconciliation with God. This is good news! This is the Gospel!

 Colossians 1:13–14.

13 [The Father] has delivered and drawn us to Himself out of the control and the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 In Whom we have our redemption through His blood, [which means] the forgiveness of our sins.

Why are you here? To tell the good news that men and women have been reconciled to God and are free from satanic bondage and control! Go and tell!