Peacemakers Are The Children Of God

Matthew 5:23-25

“Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remembers that thy brother hath ought against thee then leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shall by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing”

Did I just read this correctly? It didn’t say if I have something against someone else to go to them but if THEY have something against ME that I am to go to them and make it right! One thing I have learned about being a true disciple of Christ (not the americanized version of being a disciple) is that the teachings of Jesus are totally AGAINST our natural inclinations as humans. This is why to truly follow the Lord we must “deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him” every day which is against everything we may have been taught by the americanized version of Jesus which is being taught from the pulpits of the churches in this country. We also need to understand that many of the things be taught in american churches are coming straight from satan himself and not God.

In 2 Corinthians we are told that “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ and do not marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). So we can clearly see that satan will plant false teachers into the church to deceive people and only those who take the time to study the Word of God will be able to tell the difference between the lies and the truth (2 Timothy 2:15). However, knowing the Word of God means nothing if we are not willing  to do what it says and if we don’t do what it says then we are deceiving ourselves (James 1:22). So if we have a brother/sister who has something against us what should we do again? We are to go to them because if we don’t then what did the rest of the passage tell us? “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shall by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing”. If we do not fix the problem with someone it can ensnare us spiritually, mentally, physically or all three. Many people are having issues in these realms (spiritual, mental, and health) because someone they know has something against them and they refuse to go to them. Their refusal to obey the Word of God has now opened up a door and the enemy (satan) is more than willing to bring them into captivity. So what do we do if we know someone in this situation? When I have issues there is always a passage that 99% of the time will lead me to the root cause of WHY I am having problems. If we know people that are at odds we are told to be what? Peacemakers!!

It does not however tell us to be peacekeepers.

Matthew 5:9

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God”

So HAPPY are those who bring peace and harmony between individuals for THEY shall be called the Children of God! When I got a hold of this scripture I was like “Oh Yeah” because it explained a lot about what I have been seeing in the Body of Christ. However, to understand this verse we have to understand that we are NOT EVER called to be peacekeepers. Once again, we always must go back to James 1:22 because if we want to be REAL children of God then we have to ALWAYS do what the Word of God says, right? So now what is a peacekeeper?

A good example of this is to imagine that we have two warring factions that we will call from this point on “FA” for faction “A” and “FB” for faction “B” (or person A and person B). Now these factions could be countries, states, friends, or even family members however it doesn’t matter as long as we understand the concept. So let’s say we have two friends who are at odds with each other. If we enter this conflict as peacekeepers then normally we will try and “sooth” one or both of the parties or we will stand in the middle so they don’t fight with one another and this is what peacekeepers do, keep the peace. However, this is NOT the role of a Christian because we are told nowhere to keep the peace but we are called to be peacemakers. So how can we be peacemakers?

Let’s say that two of our friends are at odds and let’s say that we have known FA all our life and we have known FB for a shorter period. Our natural inclination of course it to back FA because we have known them for a much longer time than we have known FB so can we be a peacemaker in this situation? The answer is yes and no. On the yes side, if we can truly be completely objective in our peacemaking attempts then of course we arbitrate between the two people. However, if we are biased towards FA or even FB then there is NO WAY we can arbitrate this because no matter what the other side says we will stick up for the one that we are biased towards. I know this from personal experience, because I have done this. So since we can’t be neutral and make an unbiased decision what should we do? The main thing we need immediately is to back out of the conflict because our prejudice is going to make the situation a lot worse, and I also know this from personal experience. I have seen things that could have been easily fixed get SO blown out of proportion all because an outside source stuck their nose where it doesn’t belong and yes once again I have done this myself. Anyone who is biased towards one side or the other will never be able to be a peacekeeper because their bias will never let them make a truly objective decision concerning the issue that has come up between the two people they are trying to help.

So, if we cannot be 100% unbiased in our peacemaking efforts than we need to back out and find someone who can. When I was a union steward I remember many times that when the company and union could not make a decision or come to some kind of agreement then they would bring in an outside arbitrator and the main reason was based on the fact that the arbitrator had no “dog in the fight”. I will say this as strongly as I can in hopes whoever is reading this will understand… We should NEVER and I mean EVER get involved in anything between FA and FB if we are prejudice towards one side over the other because if we do we are going to cause more harm than good. The Word of God says to judge righteously (John 7:24) and there is no way that we can be judging righteously if we are biased towards either side of a disagreement between two people.

I have said this often because to the world my family was the “perfect” american christian family, but behind closed doors it was a nightmare from hell. So, while we may think that we can say with complete certainty that FA or FB is right just because we have “known them” for so long the real truth is that unless we have been with one or the other 24/7 for their entire lives we are only speculating based on our bias towards one of them and speculation is not righteous judgment!

I pray that this helps us all become more responsible peacemakers because this is what we are called to do and if we are peacemakers then we will be called the Children of God!!!