“Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they will be called children of God.”
- Matthew 5:9
We live in such divisive times. There is always one diachotomous battle after the next, each one pleading for you to take a side and all the implications that come with it. For one is always “right” and the other always “wrong.” Some grow up being told they must always vote either conservative or liberal. Some are Pro-choice, others are Pro-life. Even in the Christian circle there are the Calvinist and the Arminians; the Fundamentalist and the Liberals (a different kind than political sense); Contemporary and Traditional; and not to mention the countless denominations and non-denominational churches that exist today because of internal feuds.
And in no way am I claiming in this that I have mastered the art of peacemaking, I routinely fail and hope to get better every day. I have been seen as arrogant, narrow-minded, too wishy-washy, too liberal, too conservative (ya, fun tension there), and many other things that parse me out to be against some form of “other.” While I may be no expert in building peace, it is one of my utmost convictions to be a peacemaker, and I pray for such discernment and growth in daily life.
Peace and Purity:
To be a peacemaker does not necessarily mean one will live without conflict or division in one’s life. Perhaps their peacemaking abilities will bring them into even greater conflict than ever before, for there will always be “enemies” and those who oppose you, because there may always be impurities in the heart.
Matthew 5:8 talks about the pure in heart, and I believe that is essential in preceding the statement on peacemakers. In the previous devotional, which wrestles with Matthew 5:8, purity in heart is seen as the quality of one's inner motivation to pursue Christ. That being, one is not motivated to pursue any other thing: money, power, success, winning, all is nothing in comparison to Christ, and yet we let it compete for Christ in our hearts.
Divisions and conflict may very well reveal impurities in the heart, whether that be your own or in the other persons. If it is clearly your own, I invite you and me to step back and do some spiritual heart surgery with the help of Christ by means of grace through the Holy Spirit. If you are somehow entirely pure in your intentions to be Christ in the conflict, then the invitation for you and I is to build peace and unity with even “enemies.”
Divisions are often a result of conflicting values or motivations, even if one such value or motive is pure, there is still room for conflict. Such a life without conflict is perceptually impossible in this lifetime, perhaps that is why Christ does not ever teach us to live without conflict, but to be peacemakers.
Relational Peaces:
I know “peaces” is not a grammatically correct word, but I do want to present to you multiple ways of peacemaking in the Christian sense. 1) Peacemaking between yourself and an other and 2) Evangelistic peacemaking between an other and God.
First, on the relations between man and his/her fellow man. There is no doubt Jesus has in mind the form of peacemaking speaking here. The Israelites were always called to live in such peace with their surrounding nations, and yet they regularly failed to do so. Abraham was told that all the nations would be blessed through him (Genesis 12:3), yet the Israelites routinely lived in conflict with God and other nations by their own volition (Habakkuk 2:8). Despite such conflict we are called to pray for our enemies (Luke 6:27-28).
No doubt, peacemaking happens on the horizontal relationships we have. We are not called to lash out nor to cut out, but to build peace, even in division. Such was the way of Christ, for even when fellow Jews wanted a militaristic messiah who will take Jerusalem back from the Romans, Jesus said pay your taxes to Caesar. Peace between men and women is important, and something to be striving for. This requires great humility and even a death to oneself. The natural response is to fight back, declare the other as wrong, but the way of Jesus, in a pure heart, seeks to find the value of the “enemy” and make a sense of unity. Living in the right relationship with others is a vital part of obedience and following Christ. Such is the way of a disciple, a way that must be learned and practiced.
The next way of being a peacemaker is much more evangelistic, and in obedience to loving God. Paul regularly begins his letters to churches saying something like, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father” (Col 1:2; Eph 1:2; Gal 1:2). Clearly from this peacemaking is also a vertical relationship. For salvation, brought by the amazing birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, brought us into peace with God. For once we were enemies, in that we were disposed to do life our way, but such a way is sinful and is sickness. Through Christ’s redemption and being brought into the right relationship with the Father, there is peace, and a New Life can be lived in such peace.
In this sense of peacemaking, we are messengers with beautiful feet (Isa 52:7), we are evangelists with a message of the right relationship with God through redemption. We are proclaiming hope and newness. This is not to say non-Christians are inherently the enemy, there are disastrous and unhealthy implications of calling them enemies of the faith. Instead, with purity in heart, and peace in our speech, we share the good news to others, making peace audible to others.
I wonder what I can do next week to make peace with someone. Perhaps that is proclaiming to them a good word from my experience with God, or in my agitation with them to stop my internal raging dialogue and pray for that person to experience peace from God. Perhaps, instead of planning out my soap box response to someone’s idea, I humbly listen and search for their values hidden within their sharing. There are numerous other practical ways to be a peacemaker, but may you find your own creative ways.
Final Blessing:
I want to close with this one with a prayer I have recently wrote for myself, as I continue to hope to become a better person and disciple of Christ, I hope this serves you well.
The Lord is my Redeemer,
He brings me great peace,
And commissions me with good news.
He guides me in His right ways,
And shows me His grand plan,
I delight in His faithfulness.
He renews my strength for the mission,
For good news and peace I proclaim,
From His undivided Grace and Truth.
I may not always know the wrongs I commit against someone, but may God show me the right ways to be in a relationship with others.
May the Lord of life and redemption be with you in every step, every breath, and every heartbeat. Be messengers of the Good News and Peace friends!
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