Welcome to this time of meditation and connection with God.  I recommend beginning with prayer.  Pray that God will come to you and speak to you in this time, that you would put all else aside so that you can hear God’s voice, and that God will inspire and encourage you through His holy word. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[a] The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ 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. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin^[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The word that really caught my attention from the above scripture is “ambassadors”.  An ambassador is “an accredited diplomat sent by a country as its official representative to a foreign country”.  Think of what it would be like to serve as an ambassador for the United States of America.  I think of the sense of purpose an ambassador must feel; he/she is the official representative of the United States of America to the nation he/she serves.  The sense of responsibility that person feels would really motivate me.  To know that for an entire country, I AM the United States of America!

Paul is saying to me that Christ has given me a mandate.  I am to serve as his ambassador to the world, or at least the part of the world I get to live in and interact with.  Through me, his ambassador, God will make His appeal to the world.  His appeal is his offer of forgiveness, his promise of eternal life, and his assurance of a life on this earth filled with hope and joy.  And I, along with all other Christ-followers get to make this appeal to each and every person I come into contact with.  That’s a great message we get to proclaim!  That’s the kind of message that gives me a purpose for life.

May God bless and strengthen us as we serve as His ambassadors today!

Mark