I have shared over and over again this year, in all of our different texts and series that the only way to truly know the nature of a kingdom is to learn the heart and character of the king. This text that we enter into today, for the third week in a row, is a revelation of God’s heart. It shows God as a lover of action, He does not sit in heaven with great affection for us, He is moved by His love; love so encompasses His nature and His character that He acts on our behalf. The love of Christ captured Paul’s heart when he discovered that God’s love was so full, so corporate, so selfless and so tangible that Christ died for all so that all might live. The love of God was and is poured out on all mankind in one measure and one action, as Romans 5:8 says “God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” At any moment that you struggle in feeling loved, quote this verse to yourself and declare it to your heart and your mind, you are loved, the proof of that love is Jesus died for you. At any moment that we struggle with loving each other, with forgiveness, intercession, generosity or mercy, quote this verse to your wounded heart and your uneasy, possibly even anxious mind, “God showed His love for US in that while WE were all still sinners, Christ died for all of Us.” As Paul said, “One died for all”. Last week we moved deeper into the King’s heart, learning not just the fact that Jesus died for all but we began to see the purpose of His death. Jesus’ death accomplished many things: it fulfilled the Law, it satisfied the sacrificial system, it opened the door for forgiveness and redemption through repentance, it removed the veil that stood between man and God’s presence but the purpose of Jesus’ death, the reason He died, according to Paul was so that all of these accomplishments could free us from sin’s bondage so that we could “live no longer for ourselves, but for Him who died and rose again”. Jesus died so that we could live differently. In the Genesis 1 account of God’s creation of man, God said “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness”. When God created man, when He created us, it was so that we would be like Him, so that we would be in unity with Him, have fellowship with Him, to live for Him and to live like Him. The death of Jesus began the restoration process of man to his created purpose. When Satan came and tempted Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he told her that if she would eat of the tree that her eyes would be opened and she would “be like God”. The incredible sadness of the fall of man is that Adam and Eve were already like God, they were created to be like Him, to live with Him and to live for Him. Jesus’ death restores us to how we were created, to the lives we were meant to live. Sin makes us live for ourselves. When we live for ourselves we live in sin and when we live in sin we live for ourselves. Jesus died so that we would no longer live for ourselves but so that we would live for Him. That is reconciliation, that’s the outcome, when we live for Jesus we know that we have been reconciled to God. Today as we move into verses 16 and 17 we move closer to reconciliation by learning where living for Jesus begins. Amazingly what we will see today is that living for Jesus doesn’t begin in our actions or our church attendance, in our religious efforts or all the bad habits we change or the things on our cultural list of sins that we stop doing, living for Jesus begins with how we view and think about each other, Jesus and ourselves. We can’t get to reconciliation until we deal with how we think. Reconciliation requires a surrender and surrender won’t happen until we see everyone and everything differently. This morning my prayer is that we will open our hearts and open our minds and let the Word of God teach us that living for Jesus begins with how I am looking at you.