The Power of Peacemaking

The New Testament understanding of making peace goes far deeper than merely working for a compromise between two or more parties so that hostilities can diminish. Peacemaking is a costly, self-sacrificing reality that finds its fullest expression in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Then, in His kind desire to share His blessing and authority with us, He invites us into the same kind of sacrificial life. Consider this passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:14-18, NKJV)

Jesus was the ultimate peacemaker, and therefore sets the definition for what that term can mean. In the first place, He gave Himself as a man to full and complete obedience to the Father, completely and perfectly living out the character of God in the flesh. He is the one man who did it right every time! Because He is the author of life, and all of life is contained in Him,  when He demonstrated His perfection through the course of His days on earth, He was given authority to be the prototype of a whole new race of men. If you can picture this, it is as though He gathered up into Himself all who would believe in Him and brought them to peace, reconciling them to His Father through His life.

Because we have been reconciled to the Father, we can now truly come into our own identity and destiny by His grace instead of by our energies. As we live in communion with God, we hear our Father’s voice telling us over and over who we are, how much we are loved, what our task is, and the destiny to which He has invited us. His love and power assure our hearts that these things will be fulfilled, and therefore we can be at rest, at peace. When we live at peace with God, we can come to peace with ourselves and our own journey toward the fullness of our destiny. And when we are at peace in those two arenas, we can come to peace with one another.

Those who make peace stand in the direct flow of the ministry of Jesus. We are called to live in Jesus’ dynamic of intimate obedience to God and His ways. As we do this, the Father reveals Himself through our lives in ways similar to how He revealed Himself through the life of Jesus. People are drawn to Him through us as they were through Jesus, and the opportunity presents itself to establish peace between those individuals and God as their Father. As the reality of peace with God is absorbed into their lives, it becomes possible to bring them to peace with others whose lives they touch.
Because this effect stands in such harmony with the ministry of Jesus, the reward that comes to peacemakers is at the level of fundamental identity: they are called “the sons of God.”

Gary Wiens

Purity of Heart and the Knowledge of God

Apart from Jesus Himself, King David was a man who understood authority perhaps as well as any man ever has. He ruled the nation of Israel during its ascent to the pinnacle of power among earthly kingdoms, and he gave much energy to contemplating authority and what is required of those who will exercise it. In Psalm 24 David gives us insight into the authority structure of heaven, and the requisites for receiving that heavenly authority here on the earth. Consider these words:

The earth is the LORD’S, and all its fullness,

The world and those who dwell therein. 

For He has founded it upon the seas,

And established it upon the waters. 

Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?

Or who may stand in His holy place? 

He who has clean hands and a pure heart,

Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,

Nor sworn deceitfully. 

He shall receive blessing from the LORD,

And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

(Psalm 24:1-5, NKJV)

David’s first acknowledgement here is that all the fullness of the earth belongs to the Lord God. He is the supreme authority by right of creation and redemption, and all who dwell on the earth belong to Him. But then the Psalm gets focused on who will be qualified to share in the Lord’s authority. “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who may stand in His holy place?” In other words, who is the one who can stand before the Lord in confidence to share in His authority?

The answer is concise and pointed: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully.” David takes the issue of qualification right past the question of behavior to the deeper matter – the condition of the heart. The one who may confidently stand in God’s presence is the one with a pure heart, who has no falseness or deceit in the foundations of their personality. Because the heart of God is absolutely pure, with no hint of improper motives or deceitful agendas, He is able to exercise His authority in such a way that brings maximum grace and fulfillment to all who come to Him. He doesn’t use people for His own glory at their expense. Rather, He shares His identity and authority with them that they may be exalted and glorified, thereby bringing even greater honor to Himself.

Therefore, those who will share His authority must be those who are conformed to His character. They will be the same on the inside as they are on the outside, those who know that God desires us to have “truth in the inward parts.”  But the greater reward that comes to those with pure hearts is that they will see God. As we grow in conformity to His character, there is a greater and greater revelation that comes to us. God allows us to see Himself. We can hardly imagine the depth of this reward. King David, in the context of his own magnificent earthly kingdom, said that his greatest desire was to be in the House of the Lord, gazing upon the beauty of God, and inquiring in His temple.  David knew that God’s self-revelation was the ultimate prize, worthy of the total focus of his own heart.

Becoming People of Mercy

As we begin to be conformed to the image of Jesus in our search for power, we also begin to realize how He exercised the authority that was given to Him. We begin to see things as He sees them, and to respond to people and situations with the mercy and compassion that characterizes the heart of God in His dealings with us. In another section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs us that as we give mercy to those around us, particularly those who are undeserving of it, we begin to demonstrate our intimate relationship with God as our Father, who is merciful and kind to those who are wicked and ungrateful.

Being merciful to evil and unthankful people does not seem like the way to greatness, at least to those who are accustomed to living in the me-first, cut-throat world of contemporary culture. But we must be reminded that mercy is the way of God, and He is the one who defines all things. It is He who gives power to those who wait upon Him and are conformed to His ways. His promise to those who become merciful is that they will receive mercy, both for their own situations, and as a resource to give away to those who need it.

The reason that mercy is such an essential dynamic in God’s Kingdom is that it provides a context in which people can truly be transparent about the condition of their hearts and lives. In the New Testament letter to the Hebrews, the writer provides a profound understanding for the context of mercy established by God on our behalf.  Citing the temptations that Jesus faced as a man on the earth, we are told that these pressures made Jesus to be compassionate and merciful toward the rest of us when we face such things. Because Jesus is sympathetic due to His own experience of testing, we can come into the presence of God in the confidence of full self-disclosure knowing that the first thing that awaits us is mercy, not condemnation. Therefore, as we experience mercy as the first result of encountering God, we become those who give mercy to those we encounter, thereby opening a way for them to be transparent about the things that concern them. The freedom to be real and transparent in a non-defensive way is integral to spiritual growth and lasting change, and the extending of mercy as the first response sets the context for that growth.

When God finds people who are becoming merciful, He extends even greater mercy to them. One of the great dynamics of the Kingdom of God is that whatever one gives away is returned to them in greater measure. In Luke 6:38, just a few lines after Jesus instructs us about mercy, He further teaches that what we give will be returned to us, compressed and increased in proportion to how we gave it. Though we have mostly applied that principle to the giving of finances, He is talking primarily there about mercy and forgiveness. As we become conformed to the character of His Kingdom, we become recipients of the graces of His Kingdom. We give mercy to those who need it, setting in motion the release of additional mercies to us, both in our areas of need and as a resource to share with others.

Gary Wiens