SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/24/2020
8:48 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “What
is the Meaning of Peace”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 5:9
Message of the
verse: “"Blessed
are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
We begin this SD with a quote from
James 3:17, as James confirms the nature of God’s peace: “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,
reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.” Notice the highlighted portion of this
verse. The following is a very
interesting quote from John MacArthur “God’s way to peace is through
purity. Peace cannot be attained at the
expense of righteousness. Two people
cannot be at peace until they recognize and resolve the wrong attitudes and
actions that caused the conflict between them, and then bring themselves to God
for cleansing. Peace that ignores the
cleansing that brings purity is not God’s peace.” This is an important statement when one is witnessing
to an unbeliever as they have to be careful to remember that the person needs
to repent and then confess Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
Hebrews 1:14 says “Pursue peace with all men, and the
sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” The writer of Hebrews is linking peace with
purity as we can see from this verse that he instructs believers to pursue
peace. I kind of mentioned earlier that
peace cannot be divorced from holiness.
Psalm 85:10 “Lovingkindness and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other.” Again notice
the highlighted portion of this verse.
The Bible teaches us that where there is true peace there is
righteousness, holiness, and purity. We
cannot by to bring harmony by compromising righteousness as this will forfeit
both.
Now we have to look at another MacArthur quote: “Jesus’ saying ‘Do not think that I came to
bring peace on the earth: I did not come
to bring peace, but a sword’ (Matt. 10:34) seems to be the antithesis of the
seventh beatitude. His meaning, however,
was that the peace He came to bring is not peace at any price. There will be opposition before there is
harmony; there will be strife before there is peace. To be a peacemaker on God’s terms requires
being peacemaker on the terms of truth and righteousness—to which the world is
the fierce opposition. When believers bring
truth to bear on a world that loves falsehood, there will be strife. When believers set God’s standards on
righteousness before a world that loves wickedness, there is an inevitable
potential for conflict. Yet that is the
only way.”
There is a problem and that problem is that until
unrighteousness is changed to righteousness there cannot be godly peace. The problem with this problem is that the
process of resolution is difficult and costly.
Truth will produce anger before it produces happiness; righteousness
will produce antagonism before it produces harmony. All one has to do is look at what is going on
in our country between our two political parties to see this in action. The gospel can certainly bring about bad
feelings before it can bring good feelings.
Some time the Holy Spirit, as far as we are concerned takes His time
before a person becomes a believer. The
first thing that a person has to do is mourn over their sin or they will never
be satisfied with God’s righteousness. I
have heard that there are times when you have to get a person lost before that
person receives Christ and is saved.
Remember our study in Ephesians’ to see that the sword that Christ
brings is the sword of His Word. “The
sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.”
The Word is likened unto the surgeon’s scalpel, as it must cut before it
heals, because peace cannot come where sin remains.
5/24/2020 9:17 PM
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