Lord, help us strain to look more like You and less like us
Being at peace is difficult. Agreeing that you are part of the problem, half of the argument, and one-half of the disagreement creates anguish in our hearts, for we like to think we are NOT the problem but the solution.
How many times has that ‘stinky’ thinking brought us to our knees?
Good morning and welcome to the marriage of two different individuals who said: “I do” many days ago, only to come at odds with one another and suddenly “don’t” want to own their side of the disagreement. When this occurs, two people (even godly ones) at odds with one another, then their pride is lifted high, and the Lord is not glorified.
If you’ve been married more than a few days, then you know exactly the situation being described, and the ‘what’ two individuals are arguing about usually does not matter. What matters is that two people who love the Lord are suddenly allowing the devil to drive a wedge between them, to cause them to be at odds with one another.
Peacemaking is difficult work. It requires humility; it requires words spoken that one means to keep and not just speak. Making peace means one must say, “You know, I was wrong in my actions, in my reactions, in my thoughts, and I am sorry, truly sorry. And more importantly, it also means that I am going to ask God to help me never return to that action, reaction, or thought again because I love you and want to make amends.”
Jesus spoke about “peacemakers” when He sat on Mount Bethany and taught the crowds His Beatitudes.
Jesus said:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
(The Gospel According to Matthew 5: 9 NASB)
There are a few takeaways here.
- To be a peacemaker, one must be the cause of the anguish.
- To be a peacemaker, one must strive to make “peace” within the situation.
- Peacemakers work to resolve conflicts.
- Peacemakers build and tear down the fences that divide.
- To make “peace” requires one be “at peace” with God, the Father.
A true definition of a “peacemaker”—“for they shall be called sons of God.” Therefore, as God’s children, “peacemakers” strive to live at peace with one another, and that includes the one who sleeps beside us in the bed, the one who sits across from us at the dinner table, and the one who we stood years ago and pledged our love to, “until death do us part.”
Finally, to strive for “peace” means we are straining to look more like Jesus.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit,
(The 2nd Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 3: 17-18 NASB)
and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty.
But we all,
with unveiled face,
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”