Peace with God

Peace with God comes only through Jesus Christ. Roman 5:1 says: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, “

Peace with God is not mere rest, mere solitude, and mere quiet or mere retreat behind our self constructed walls of escape from the real world. Christ calls us to a higher mission than to find comfort and tranquility in this life. Love of family is a law of God, but even this love can be self-serving and an excuse not to serve God or do His work. True peace with God is complete and total reconciliation with God; as a matter of fact, total and complete God driven reconciliation is our ministry. II Corinthians 5:16-21: “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 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. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The process for peace is always war. Yes, war. Hard to believe? Jesus said in Matt. 10:34: "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

At first glance this sounds like a contradiction. In Isaiah 9:6 Jesus is prophesized as the “Prince of Peace”. In John 14:27 Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you.” It’s true that Christ came to bring peace between the believer and God and peace among men. Yet the inevitable result of Christ’s coming is conflict—conflict between Christ and the anti-Christ, conflict between light and darkness, and conflict between Christ’s children and the devil’s children and sometimes conflict between family members. The process for peace with God is conflict or war.

We don’t like conflict with one another. As a matter of fact, we go to great lengths to escape confrontation. Our failure to face our personal sins and our conflicts with one another leads to trouble. We compromise. We must never comprise with evil. God’s power transforms evil into good.

Christian families are in trouble. Why? Because we fail to confront (we hate conflict and the confrontation of truth). So, the truth seeker is labeled the troublemaker, and the compromiser with evil is viewed as a peacemaker. Yes, we may feel good for awhile when we compromise with evil but it’s a false peace that doesn’t last. Eventually, the chickens come home to roost. We must deal with the issue. To have true peace with God and others we must go through war, confrontation and even conflict, but the result is true peace…a lasting peace.

Let’s strive for peace on all levels; the process is never a compromise with evil. The Lord, by His divine power, transforms evil into good. To the world, the cross looked like failure but it purchased our freedom. The burial of Christ looked like the end but Resurrection brought victory over death and sin.

Yes, blessed be the peace makers. Work for peace and reconciliation with one another and with God; it is our ministry or purpose. That is true peace, not some cheap imitation which is a mushy although “popular” compromise with evil.

Brothers and sisters stand for truth and sacrifice for peace, for God alone, through Jesus Christ provides it.