Different Things God is teaching Me

POOR, PRIDEFUL AMBASSADORS

Merciful testimony worked in humble diplomacy, given by a patient God and His imitators

"Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God." ~2 Corinthians 5:18-20

Ambassadors have a special task in representing well the government they serve and speaking with diplomacy to other foreign powers that do not recognize their rulership. Earthly ambassadors walk a fine line in not sowing hurt to foreign powers while, at the same time not compromising but representing their own government's will well.
As God through Paul says, "we are ambassadors of Christ." A great responsibility has been committed to our trust: We are to represent our Savior well to this world; not our own wills or agendas. An ambassador cannot risk having these or in being proud. Anyone can see through a mask of arrogance. Pride has no place in representing a humble Savior and Creator.

"Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high, who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth?" ~Psalm 113:5-6

"For thus says the High and Lofty One, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: 'I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." ~Psalm 57:15

Notice the words "pleading" and "implore." For God to plead reconciliation with an adulterous Church and a lost world is not a sign of His weakness, nor is it weakness that He should have us imitate Him in this. And if it is weakness, we already know that the "weakness of God is stronger than men."
And can we blame a lost world for rejecting our Savior and despising our message when we speak of His justice and leave out the coexistence of His love for His mercy and fail in making ourselves walk humbly before Him and  before our fellow man? (Micah 6:8 & Colossians 3:22-23) When we are proud, we misrepresent God as being prideful.
When we are so slow to remember our former 'old man' that we were redeemed from and quick to cast condemnation on those who are still mastered by it, we misrepresent the One who declares He "did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." (John 3:17; see also 12:47)

"I do not pray for these (My disciples) alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me." ~John 17:20-21

When we are threatening hell-fire, we misrepresent Him who said that He is longsuffering toward mankind and "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) Hearts that are slow to mercifully desire that this lost world might be delivered from the power of darkness and conveyed into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Colossians 1:12-13) fail to portray the desire of the King who "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4) For He is the "Savior of all men," (4:10), and an Advocate Who is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)

"Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" says the Lord God, "and not that he should turn from his ways and live?" ~Ezekiel 18:23

"Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on Him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." ~Isaiah 55:6-7

This is the message that we, as Christ's ambassadors, need to be speaking clearly and representing well to a hurting world. By the Word made Flesh Jesus Christ, God has offered, with tender and abundant mercies, the path to saving and satisfying life and to refuse this is to naturally accept the only alternative and consequence on oneself: death. (Proverbs 8:36 & 11:19, Jeremiah 25:5-7,
We do not serve nor represent a God who burns against sin without also burning with an equal passion for salvation, in reconciling those created in HIs image, to Himself. And before we can properly judge, perceive, relate to a lost and broken world, we need to be letting the judgment-Word of God begin with us. (1 Peter 4:17 & Ezekiel 9:6) If we examine our own hearts and keep them with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23-26), remembering the Flesh that still resides within us (Galatians 5:16-17) that we must crucify daily (Luke 9:23) and rooting out the logs of pride in our eyes (18:9-14), then we will be able to be qualified (1 Corinthians 9:26-27) and able to minister to a blind and broken world, to not hinder the Word of God, the good news of salvation, with our words and ways (1 Corinthians 9:12). If we do these, we will be true ambassadors who represent their Savior well to this broken world.