You’re the packaging, not the package …

Have you ever noticed there’s very little you have in your life that isn’t packaged or doesn’t come in a container of some sort?

The packaging and container businesses are multi-billion dollar industries that are essential to getting what you want or need from the provider to you.

Take, for example, a farmer who grows corn. The farmer will harvest his crop and sell it, and that
corn will make its way to a food manufacturer who will either put the corn into cans or place it in packages that are then frozen so that the cans and packages can be placed into grocery stores in a manner that you may be able to pick them up, pay for them, take them home, open them and eat the contents. To get the corn from the farmer to your dinner table requires a container or packaging of some sort.

God designed a similar process for getting reconciliation from Him to humanity, with Christians being the containers or packaging! Look at how the Apostle Paul describes this process that God has designed …

“And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!'” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.

Human beings were separated from God, their Creator, because of sin. God desired to reconcile all of humanity to Himself, which He accomplished through giving His Son, Jesus. Jesus carried out the Father’s will by giving Himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin; as Paul put it, God was reconciling the world to Himself through Christ.

Reconciliation is accomplished!

Now to deliver that to humanity, God has given to His children — Christians — the ministry of reconciliation. God selected Christians to be the “containers” or “packaging” of the Gospel message (“… and he has given us this wonderful message of reconciliation …”). To be reconciled to God, people must have and hear the Gospel message, and God uses Christians to be the containers of that wonderful message. In that way, God is directly making His appeal through us!

As a Christian, you’re a package of wonderfully good news! As a Christian, you’re a container of the life-transforming Gospel! Are you giving that message to others and helping them open it so they can receive God’s appeal to be reconciled to Him?

The world cannot know Christ unless you become an opened container of the Gospel delivered to them. Does that describe you?

Scotty