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A Defense of Thoughts and Prayers

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Sometime within the last couple of years the onslaught against “thoughts and prayers” became oppressive.  It’s almost dangerous to say such a thing out in public or social media these days, with anecdotes of venom against those who dare.  As Christians, however, I don’t think we need to be afraid, as long as we keep some things in mind.

First, many of those who take offense to offerings of thoughts and prayers seem mostly to come from the unbelieving set.  It should not surprise us at all that such a one would take offense.  While we affirm the power of prayer, an unbeliever has no set anchor to prayer or to our God to whom those prayers are addressed.  In their minds, joy and hardship are not rooted in anything spiritual and our affirmation otherwise is the offence of the gospel.

What is far too obvious in their minds, however, is the second point I want to make.  Unbelievers see action and inaction very clearly – and, let’s be honest, many of those who have so cavalierly offered their thoughts and prayers to the suffering, especially in the public forum, also don’t seem to have much faith as it is biblically defined.  I am mindful of James 2:14-17.  James writes, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says they have faith but not works? Can that faith save them?  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is it? So also, faith alone, if it does not have works, is dead.”

That’s what I think the main complaint against “thoughts and prayers” really is.  Unbelievers see too much talk and not enough action among those who profess to be God’s children.  When folks offer these and chose not to act, they are, in essence, abandoning their duty to serve by kicking it up to God when all the while God wants action.

And that leads to the third point.  It is very true that sometimes situations are so out of our ability or understanding of how to help that all we can do is pray.  But besides that, as a believer, I know prayer should come first and foremost, even before situations develop.  We should swim in prayer, knowing God holds answers to questions we haven’t even thought to ask.  When we do that, we won’t be caught off guard by the world’s madness and will have a much greater chance of knowing exactly what needs doing when it needs done.  Now imagine; What do we think the impact will be when non-believers see us acting in justice, mercy, and humility, speaking to their pain in actual work, and not fearing to sweat when trouble comes?  What happens when we then tell them we’ve been praying all along?  The world will then covet our prayers indeed.

As to “thoughts,” maybe that’s not so defensible after all….

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The Source of Spiritual Resilience

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I am honored to be with you tonight as we honor the class of ’22.  This is about you, a celebration of your accomplishments and we are so very glad to share in your joy tonight.  Resilience.  That is the theme for this evening, and for this class, I can’t think of a much better one than that!  I want to go to Judges 6 as a jumping off point to address this theme.  What we find recorded there is a truly pathetic situation.  It has only been a hundred years or so before that God had led His people into the land of promise, having delivered them from Egypt with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, passing them through the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan River (at flood stage) on dry ground.  God fought for them and had given them houses and vineyards they hadn’t worked for in the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey.  But now, Judges 6 has them fearing for their lives, impoverished by oppressors, living on the margins in caves and under the clefs of rock.   Now, I’m not the biggest camping fan – but even the biggest fan probably wouldn’t like this kind of long-term living arrangement, dragging out for seven years without the comforts of home.  Israel cries out to God, who makes it clear this has happened because of disobedience.  But that’s not really what to focus on – I’d rather focus on the plan.  Because God has a plan, like He always does, and goes to visit Gideon.  And the plan is this – Gideon, you are my mighty warrior.  You’re going to save my people.

Gideon has some objections – yes, he’s heard the history of deliverance from Egypt, but he’s living a different reality.  He’s been camping out like the rest of his people for the past seven years.  He’s seen the hoards of enemies swarm down like so many locusts and take everything.  Even their camels are as uncountable as sand on the seashore.  The Midianites are overwhelming, powerful, wealthy, superior in technology, and ruthless.  He answers God, “This is where we are, and God, you put us here.”  God ignores all that and simply tells him, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel from Midian’s hand.”

Yeah.  About that strength thing.  You see, there are a couple of other pieces of information you may have overlooked.  I’m from the weakest clan in Manasseh and I’m the least in my family.  Go in the strength that I have?  I haven’t got much.

I think I know what Gideon was looking for.  Moses was looking for it to when God told him to speak to Pharoah.  Elijah in I Kings 19 when he fled to Mt. Horeb also had the issue.  But God answers.  He makes clear – “Go in the strength you have.”  Outnumbered?  Go in the strength you have.  Desperate living conditions?  Go in the strength you have.  Overwhelming odds?  Go in the strength you have.  A global pandemic?  Go in the strength you have!  The worst political divisions in our lifetime?  Go in the strength you have!  Gas as $4.70?  Go in the strength you have!  A major land war in Europe?  Go in the strength you have!  Hostile spiritual environment?  Go in the strength you have!  Do we honestly think God doesn’t see the challenges?  He knows them all, intricately!  Gideon – weakest in your tribe, youngest in your family – Go in the strength you have….

And Gideon.  One other thing. You have forgotten.  I already said it when I greeted you at first, but I’m going to say it again… Yes.  Go in the strength you have….

….and I will be with you!  Oh boy.  That makes all the difference.  That’s what Gideon needed to hear, and let’s be honest, that’s what we need to hear!  If God says to do something, He will be right there with us while we’re doing anything He’s telling us to do!  And it is precisely this knowledge that has empowered God’s people for millennia!  It is what allows David to sing in Psalm 3, I will not fear the tens of thousands who have set themselves against me – why?  Because you, O Lord are a shield about me and the lifter of my head.

How about this?

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing greatness is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.  II Corinthians 4.

Or this?

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8.

Now we made a shift there from Old to New Testament and Gideon didn’t understand it all fully, welcoming things more from afar (Hebrews 11:13).  He constantly needed reminders of God’s presence, that’s what that fleece thing is all about, and that’s not something we need anymore as vessels of the Holy Spirit – but that’s not where I’m going – we’re shifting from the Old to the New Testament and we’re talking resilience.  And resilience, like most good things, ultimately has its roots squarely planted in the Gospel!  And what is that Gospel?  Simply the thing that Paul declares is of first importance, the thing that is the bedrock foundation for all our faith, that which without we are to be pitied above all people, and it is this – that Christ died for our sins according the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day….

Death – burial – resurrection.

What could be more resilient than passing from death to life?!  What could be more resilient than resurrection?!  And it is the living out of the risen Christ and being daily filled with the Holy Spirit that allows us to mount up on eagles’ wings, running without growing weary, and walking without being faint!

Good ol’ Ben Franklin famously said the two things in life that are sure are death and taxes.  Well, Jesus took care of death.  But we will face our Midianite army, we will face the tens of thousands, just like we have faced them the last couple of years as a group.  That is certain, straight from the mouth of Jesus – “In this world you will have trouble” But what is the next part of that verse?  “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  So.  In whatever step we take tomorrow.  Go and live the resurrection!  Go in the strength you have!  And go in the knowledge that we serve a God who will never leave you or abandon you, a God who says, as you live out my will, “I will be with you!”

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Sowing Peace in an Angry World

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Nothing can make sense of what happened in Uvalde, Texas yesterday.  There was no reason behind it – explanations, maybe – reason, no (I addressed that here).  Events like this make me terribly concerned about the violence around us, the disregard of life, and the frequency it happens.  I was still processing Buffalo, NY when I heard about Uvalde.  My head is spinning.

I won’t wade into the debates about what we just witnessed but something is crystal clear to me – in this very angry world, it is crucial for God’s people to bring peace and to shun anger.  Maybe that sounds weak.  But I’m saying this because more and more I see people wearing the name of Christ (sometimes literally) giving in to the rage our country is steeped in – and to do so is to enter the realm of the senseless.  Proof?  Jesus equates anger at someone with murder (Matthew 5:22-23).  Let’s take a few moments to let that sink in….

…. Are you angry?  What are you angry about?  Who are you angry at?  Where is all that leading?  Not to the righteousness God desires (James 1:20), that is certain.  To unrighteousness then….

So, to be brief – what happened yesterday came from a very angry place.  In our attitudes, in our lives, Jesus doesn’t want us anywhere near that.  Rather, we should strive to reap a harvest of righteousness by sowing peace everywhere we go (James 3:18).

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Caring for What God Cares About

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The other day, while I was relaxing in a hammock a few feet from one of our bird feeding stations, a catbird came and entertained me with his antics.  I love birdwatching.  It’s fascinating and fires up the part of my brain given over to wonder.  It is absolutely marvelous to watch a bluebird fly – delicate, almost magical, and completely different from a red-breasted woodpecker, which seems to launch itself hazardously into the air daring gravity to bring it down at every upstroke of its wings.  They all swoop in on our feeders – woodpeckers, bluebirds, catbirds, hummingbirds, nuthatches… you get the idea.  But we feed them so we can wonder at them.  They would be harder to find if we didn’t.  God’s feeding station is huge.

I’ve thought about God’s care of the birds and flowers as expressed in Matthew 6 several times – but as we have fed birds for a number of years, I found myself wondering – what would they do without us?  By feeding them ourselves are we somehow negating God’s care for them?  “Don’t be silly,” I’ve told myself.  And it is silly to a point – but the question has led to some interesting and perhaps valuable conclusions….

I believe God loves it when we interact with His creation.  He created – our interaction with it is, in many cases, re-creation.  When we work in the dirt with our hands or landscape our yard or replant trees along a creek – when we set up feeding stations for birds or create ponds for fish or rescue baby robins (a specialty of my youngest) – we often find ourselves invigorated and God rejoices in that.  It’s like parents seeing their children do what they’ve seen mom and dad do a thousand times and the joy parents take in that initiative.  I can hear God saying, “I take care of the birds – you want to help?  Great!  See how I made the juncos to forage on the ground while the hummingbirds suspend themselves in flight to drink flower nectar?…”

We are mistaken if we think this is a distraction – God isn’t into distraction.  There is real meaning to it all as God gives us the responsibility to steward wisely what He has made.  In this, God is also observing if we care about what He cares about.  And, “If that is how He cares for the birds of the air, will He not much more take care of you?”  Ah.  Let’s pivot here.

I’m not negating God’s care of anything by getting involved in the things He cares about.  He is joyously letting me share in the work – and the scope of His work is vast.  But homing in on Matthew 6, consider – He takes care of the birds; He makes flowers beautiful; but He cares for us more.  So… as a matter of emphasis… if I care about the things God cares about at the intensity He cares about them, there is no way we are going to see someone in need and say, “I wish you well, be warmed and fed” (James 2:16).  To those in doubt, we will show mercy and will strive to snatch from the fire those needing salvation (Jude 22-23).  And by all of this we will boldly witness to the world the truth of God’s care for us all.

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Winning Spiritual Battles

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spiritual battle

This is not really the post I planned on writing.  Sometimes, however, life throws curve balls at you and you have to shift if you’re going to do anything with them.  Especially when they’re coming at you from somewhere in left field instead of the pitcher’s mound; but I’ll leave the baseball analogies for now – I was never really good at baseball anyway… it’s been a bizarre couple of days and I’ll spare you the details.

Spiritual battles manifest themselves in the physical world as the various challenges we all face.  Sometimes it is clear we are facing something truly evil but sometimes it’s not so clear.  No matter, it’s still a spiritual battle since how we chose to face any challenge places us either in God’s will or outside of it.  Right now, I’m just living in Psalm 3.  I’m reminded the Lord is a shield around me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.  I affirm with David I will not fear the tens of thousands surrounding me.  I will call on the Lord’s deliverance, remembering He delivers.

This is something remarkable with David – the context here is Absalom’s rebellion and the very real danger David was in to lose not only his kingdom but also his life.  David is running away and operating on very little information – I kind of think verse one might even be a question   Yet he doesn’t panic and it is not in his speed or the caliber of those with him David relies on.  He is relying on God and recognizes true deliverance is always from Him.  If we think this is an isolated incident, it’s not.  It’s David’s M.O.  Consider he wrote Psalm 34 when he faked insanity to get away from Abimelech.  It worked.  But when I say, “It worked,” I betray an attitude David didn’t have.  David doesn’t say “It worked.”  Rather, he writes in no uncertain terms that “God worked” – and will always work for His people.  He didn’t praise himself for being so clever, he doesn’t even thank God for making him smart enough to outwit his enemy.  David doesn’t consider it important enough to mention.  What is important is God.

Now let’s consider ourselves.  This is where we fall short.  We forget in times of trouble that God has us.  When we emerge unscathed or maybe slightly scratched from some danger, we often look back and say, “Thank God I did such and such,” emphasizing the ”I did” in our own actions and relegating God to some sort of supporting role or, worse, that of spectator who may throw out barely helpful pieces of advice we can take or leave at will.  We speculate about how close of a call it all was and if things had been just a little different, we might have been ruined, chalking up our deliverance to chance.  We learn the wrong lessons and believe we (emphasizing ourselves again) can somehow avoid all trouble if we are just a bit more careful.  David sees all that as nonsense and his Psalms help us see what is really true – God is good, His constant attention is on us, and He delivers us from the myriad troubles that inevitably come our way.

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Growing Faith

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It is so easy, like Peter, to step out with a conviction of faith onto the surface of the water, eyes riveted on Jesus, and believe fully in the power of God working in our lives.  I believe it is easier still to see how God has led us somewhere out in the middle of a lake that’s a bit choppier than we bargained for and lose the faith that got us into the realm of the miraculous to begin with.  We pray for something for years and when we see God moving us into the answer we wanted we can’t believe it because it stretches us beyond what we thought was possible.  Or we are delivered from a pressing danger and think God saved us by the skin of our teeth rather than by His enormous ocean of grace.  Most often, however, we recognize with great spiritual hindsight how God pulled us through our difficulties but doubt He can get us through our present dangers.

We are in good company.  When we take a look at that great hall of fame of faith in Hebrews 11 we see some amazing men and women whom the writer says the world wasn’t worthy of.  Receiving their dead back, shutting mouths of lions, chalking up great victories.  And suffering, dying, getting tortured for their faith.  But when we dig down, we also find so many of them who did not always live out their faith.  Rather, they gave in to fear and worry and chose to do things their own way instead of God’s way.  I think in our times of weakness, we can be encouraged to know that people like us can become people like them.  How?

First, I think we need to recognize faith is a journey, not a destination.  Paul alluded to this in I Corinthians 13 when he said that many gifts will pass away but that faith, hope, and love remain as we move toward what God wants us to be.  We are getting ever closer to God until we finally reach the goal of faith, the salvation of our souls (I Peter 1:9).  Faith, therefore, must be applied to our entire lives in our ever-changing circumstances until God ultimately calls us home.  Home is the destination – faith gets us there.

Second, we’ll hamstring ourselves with notions that since only God is perfect, we don’t need to try.  Paul makes clear in Ephesians 4:13ff that spiritual maturity is possible now.  Faith is the critical ingredient.  He uses future tense, comparing us to babies in comparison to what we will be, growing, “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”  Whole.  Fullness.  That’s strong, definitive, end-game-in-this-life language we dare not ignore.

Finally, one of my favorite Proverbs is Proverbs 13:20, which tells us to walk with the wise so we will become wise.  It’s the same with faith!  If we want to be people of faith, we need to walk with people of faith!  The writer of Hebrews speaks of a cloud of witnesses in chapter 12, referring again to that hall of fame of faith in chapter 11.  But that hall of fame is not limited to those in our Bibles.  It’s also about those we are with in our church homes.  That’s why the same author makes a point of telling us to keep meeting together (Hebrews 10:25)!  From our family’s personal experience, I can tell you one of the biggest helps to the strengthening of our faith has been to be with those whose faith is strong, learning their wisdom, learning to be patient, learning to see Jesus.  Do I do it perfectly yet?  No – but I’m working on it.  And we’ll get there together….

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Getting Spiritually Fed

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getting spiritually fed

“I’m just not getting fed!”  I can pretty much guarantee when someone says that they won’t stay at their church much longer.  But Christianity is full of paradoxes and in this idea of feeding there is another; if you spend your spiritual life looking for food, you won’t find it.

Jesus’ words about spiritual and physical nourishment are often enmeshed.  Consider – in Matthew 6:25-26, Jesus tells us not to worry about what we will eat.  He then points us to the birds in the air and says they are fed by God Himself.  The point, as Martin Luther points out, is to get about the business of living life as God intended and God will take care of your needs.  It’s the same in our spiritual nourishment.  When we do what God wills, we will be spiritually fed.  Consider Jesus in John 4.  He is moving through Samaria and while His disciples are trying to find food, Jesus is talking with the woman at the well.  Jesus, always keeping in mind what God wants, speaks to the woman about spiritual matters.  When the disciples return, they are surprised to find Jesus talking to her.  As she runs off to the village to tell everyone about finding the Christ, the disciples encourage Jesus to eat.  He tells them He has food they don’t know about.  After expressing their confusion, Jesus explains His food is to do the will of the one who sent Him.

Understand please – Jesus is sitting there, tired from a long journey.  He engages this woman in a serious discussion.  It revitalizes Jesus.  He sees a harvest in front of Him.  The woman hadn’t even given Him water as far as we know.  If Jesus had focused on His thirst or His hunger, He would have missed an opportunity.  He would not have been doing God’s will.  And He would have remained weak and needy.

Is this a corrective?  Absolutely.  When we are feeling spiritually starved, this is not the time to look for people who are going to feed us.  Rather, it is a time to spiritually feed others; to serve; to keep in mind the things of God.  Returning to Matthew 6, Jesus ends the matter this way – seek first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness – and He’ll supply our need.

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True to the Truth

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true blue

Who says Bible translations can’t be funny?  I remember reading Acts 17:5 for what was probably the first time several decades ago in my old NIV and laughing out loud at the part about “rounding up some bad characters from the marketplace” like we were somewhere at the OK corral and not in Thessalonica.  Other translations have “lewd fellows of the baser sort,” “wicked men of the rabble,” and “thugs.”  I used to go into Bible bookstores and look this stuff up!

The content, however, is serious.  My wife pointed this out in our Bible class this past Sunday as our teacher had us look at the context.  So, Paul and Silas (and some others not named) are in Thessalonica convincing people about the truth of who Jesus is and quite a few people become Christians because of it.  Paul had the weight of truth on his side as was clear from the scriptures he taught from.  Pristine logic applied to true historical accounts bore fruit.  Win/win!

Except there is another group who was not having any of what Paul was saying.  Verse 5 says they were jealous, but another thing is clear too – they were willing to use any means to stop what Paul was doing.  Any means.  Hm.  This is weird.  Because these jealous types were from good God’s-chosen-people stock.  They had the law and the prophets.  They knew about justice and righteousness, mercy and humility, and the consequences of bearing false witness.  Yet, when confronted with the truth and the power of that truth, they turn to the darker side of humanity and try to beat the life out of truth.  In doing this, they completely obliterate their credibility as good-faith seekers of truth.  This is not honest doubt they harbor, it’s rather evil malice revealing their hypocrisy.

What I want to get to is this – the truth wins by being true, not by clubbing opposing arguments into silence.  I love what Peter says in I Peter 3 – “always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have – but do this with humility and respect, keeping a clear conscience….”  I’ve got to admit – sometimes people say things against my faith that really bother me.  It’s at times like these I need to make sure I am being true to the One who is Truth Himself.  Sometimes the avalanche of untruth in the world can make it tempting for us to fight the proverbial fire with fire – they play unfair, we’ll play unfair.  That is never Jesus’ way.  More subtle however, is when I am challenged in my belief with someone else’s deeply held convictions.  I have found when I feel threatened in these situations it’s because I haven’t thought something out clearly enough.  I’m not ready with an answer.  That’s the time to listen; that’s the time to explore.  I may find I was right and come out on the other side stronger because of it.  Or I may find I was wrong and come out on the other side better because I listened, explored, studied, and appealed to God for wisdom.  Acts 17:4 shows there were those in Thessalonica of that kind.  I pray we are too….

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Hope in Romans 5

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Our Bibles have a lot to say about suffering and character development, but Paul ups the ante by connecting the whole thing to hope in Romans 5.  I’m not sure we understand hope very well anyway (I’ve certainly heard plenty of confusing lessons on the subject); but tying hope to suffering fairly makes the mind spin.  Let’s break it down.

Romans 5:2 talks about rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God.  This isn’t too difficult – as He is glorious, we too will be glorious as He intended at our creation as we one day stand in His glorious presence.  In the meantime, however, we are trudging rather ingloriously through a tough world that lacerates glory.  And I think this is where we get off track because too often the word “hope” sounds like a hollow howl in the wind whistling of some far-off place we can only get to through death, which, frankly, scares us.  Someday we will be transformed – in the twinkling of an eye.  But that day!  When?  To the God who looks at a day as a thousand years and a thousand years like a day… wow.  If only we could have some foretaste of it now.

But that’s really where Romans 5:1-11 is going if we read it carefully.  You see, what’s happening is we are justified with God through Jesus by faith.  In other words, this is something we have already.  Not feeling it?  Hold on – because we have something else too.  We have God pouring His love into us by the Holy Spirit – and this is one side of that foretaste.  It resonates with us because it’s exactly the kind of love we long for, need, and know is true deep in our God-imaged selves.

Yet the world will do its worst.  It’ll throw everything it can at us, ridicule us, rage at us, ignore us, you name it.  And this is suffering.  But suffering through it is the kind of exercise that produces perseverance – just like suffering through some physical workout can get you that physical endurance.  But the whole time I’m living by the Spirit, pumping the love the Spirit is pouring into my heart.  And I come out of it a better person – a person of character.  And this is the other side of hope – because as I look at the person I am becoming, as I am developing a character that looks more and more like God’s character, as I am testing the strength to live as He wants and finding it true, I can see the glorious creature God is making me into!  So, this hope is no longer hollow – it is filled with rock-solid evidence of the power of God working in our lives – the power to transform, the power to resurrect, the power to never disappoint, the power to save….

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Biblical Peace in a Time of War

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Peace.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  Even as I write, the city of Mariupol, Ukraine has been wiped off the map at the hands of a twisted world leader who doesn’t seem afraid to enter World War III.  Every other conflict up to this point in my memory seems like a skirmish by comparison.  But even skirmishes are deadly to those who are in them, and something is always up – which leads us to a reality I think some of us would rather deny – we are never going to have world peace.  There will always be injustice and unrighteousness in the world, selfishness, envy, and jealousy – and these things lead to conflict.  However, in this very horrifying current situation, we must understand some things very clearly because we run the risk of widening a rift between our faith on the one hand and what we consider the day to day living of our lives on the other – something James might call “double minded.” (James 1:8)

To be honest, we are always in danger of “spiritualizing” our walk with Christ, forgetting He walked this earth with us in very physical form – but this rift becomes much more evident and even dangerously intentional when we’ve seen the world go crazy like it has this past month and we scramble for answers to questions we usually just ignore.  So here it is – when we pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven it’s because it is not done on earth.  And it will not be done on earth until everyone submits to the Lordship of Jesus.  How far are we from that point?  You know as well as I that just affirming Jesus as the way and the only way often leads to violent verbal rebuttal as we are labeled spiritual bigots.  This affirmation of the exclusivity of Christ is scary to the unsaved world and I’m afraid way too often we shirk our responsibility to the lost because we don’t want to frighten anyone or arouse ire.

But it is equally true in times of great upheaval and war, when the world draws up actual physical battle lines and evil shows its true face, that the spiritual battle lines become sharp and we see our call to action clearly.  Not just any action, however.  Not as equal instruments of violence, not as instruments of coercion.  But rather as instruments of peace as we hold on to the word of life (Philippians 2:16).  We must understand this like crystal – our struggle is not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:10-18).  It’s against Satan.  And Satan’s power has been on full display this month.

We usually understand something about these difficulties is in our own lives – Jesus never promises His people a lack of conflict.  As long as we are in the world, we will experience it. While it is not anywhere in His desire, He recognizes the conflict He brings to His people as He redraws the battle lines and snatches us from Satan’s clutches.  Jesus clarifies this conflict most sharply in Matthew 10:34 when He states He does not bring peace, but a sword. Our own family can become caustically opposed to us as we move from darkness to light.  Paul makes clear in Romans 12:18 that as far as it is up to us, we are to live in peace with everyone, but this demonstrates we are only one side of an equation.  If someone chooses not to live in peace with us because of our faith or for whatever other reason, that is not on us.  Peter acknowledges we may suffer for doing good (I Peter 3:14), but states that even so, we are blessed.

If all this war-like and conflict imagery seems counter to the fruit of peace in Galatians 5:22, let’s get down to it.  We, as children of God, are uniquely and exclusively qualified to create peace.  But we need a firm grip on the concept.  The peace Jesus gives us is of a far different quality than anything the world has to offer as He affirms in John 14:27. It surpasses understanding as Paul states in Philippians 4:7.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t grasp it.  Let’s grasp it.

First, when we talk of peace, the Biblical peace we see in the New Testament, we see it is tied directly to the reality of salvation found in Jesus.  When Jesus was born, listen to what the angels said in Luke 2:14 – “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”   This is not simply a parallel to, but rather the substance of salvation – peace!  It is the power behind Jesus’ words in John 14:27 as He contrasts what He offers in comparison to the world.  Peter affirms peace as salvation to Cornelius in Acts 10:36. Even the warlike imagery of Ephesians 6:15 has Christians rushing into spiritual battle not to commit bloodshed, but rather fitted in readiness with the gospel of peace!

But this peace also is reconciliation.  This is first and foremost reconciliation to God as we see in Romans 5.  Through Jesus Christ we have peace with God as verse one clearly states.  Verse ten states we are no longer enemies with God because of Jesus’ death.  Whole swaths of the book of Hebrews speak of this reconciliation we have because of Christ (chapters 9 and 10 for example), but this passage in Romans nails down the concept tightly – the peace made in Jesus is reconciliation with the Father.

This reconciliation is also between people – but this is important to note, it is only between people who chose Jesus as the peace between them.  Ephesians 2:14 affirms Jesus is our peace.  Is.  Through Him, and only through Him do we have peace!  We don’t come to one another and try to hash out peace.  We cannot come to each other in our own strength and find peace.  We cannot hope to make peace.  We can only come to Jesus – and He is our peace!

So we come to this fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22.  And we come to a world devoid of peace.  And we ask how they relate.  For ourselves, knowing where our salvation lies, we have no reason to fear anything.  The peace we have in Christ is sure, and even if the worst happens to us, we know we stand saved from all trouble as Romans 8:35-39 affirms.  This certainly doesn’t mean we won’t have trouble, but as Jesus also said the same night He was betrayed, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).  As we are transformed by the Spirit, we come to realize this more and more as we grow in Christ, and it does, in fact, surpass understanding; to much of the world it seems totally insane.  And that’s the thing – we are also in this world – and this peace, this salvation, this bold assurance, this fruit of the Spirit, is made to be shared.  As the events of this past month have shown, the need to share is urgent and this closes the gap between our faith and our walk in this crazy, messed-up world.  The world, as the world, will continue to rattle sabers and make war – but many in the world, because of us, will come to peace.  “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation….”  Isaiah 52:7

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