Blessed Are the Peacemakers
The beatitudes are God’s attitudes revealed to us through the spirit of God himself. The attitudes of God call us to a higher calling… a calling that is not of this world. For all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one of us unto his own way. But God in his grace and mercy reached down through the nail pierced hands of his Son Jesus Christ and rescued us as we were falling. It would not be redemption if we could loose it in one moment of weakness… if we fall from a bad decision. In spite of ourselves, he will never leave us or forsake us.
The difficulties and trails of this Christian life spur us to overcome… not in our own strength, but in his strength alone. Peace is only available through the Prince of Peace. The seventh beatitude says, Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. As God’s children, our Father has given us a strong family resemblance… to be like our big brother Jesus Christ. The beatitudes are Chris’s attitudes. The world cannot understand these attitudes because only the Holy Spirit can reveal His character. The beatitudes are the attitudes that result in God’s spiritual blessings.
Happiness in God’s kingdom is different from the happiness of this world. The world thinks that happiness depends on happenstance. The indoctrinated people to think that everything that happens is governed by blind random chance…. that everything is a co-incidence. However from God’s perspective, there are no co-incidences, there are only God-incidences, for God is Sovreign overall.
Worldly wisdom seeks to satisfy earthly desires… that which is earthly, sensual, and devilish. However, spiritual wisdom from above is first peaceable, easy to be untreated, without partiality and without hypocrisy… Happiness according to the Beatitudes starts with humility… blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In order to approach the Lord, we must come with empty hands. We must forsake our pride to approach his throne of grace and mercy.
Paul said, I don’t want to be disqualified for service. God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called with the power of the holy spirit. Therefore Paul said, I buffet my body to keep it in subjection to follow after Christ. The trials of this world and tribulations of life prove over and over that God himself is our strength and our sufficiency in all things. For it is God who worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure when we delight ourselves in the Lord…. when we align our good pleasure with his good pleasure.
Sin has consequences. Sin means missing the mark. The emphasis on the Greek word sin is not on the missing but on the mark itself. Therefore I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Pressing toward the mark is to live within the love of our lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I have called you friends. We love him because he first loved us. Until he loved us we did not have the capacity to love him because the love of God is a spiritual reality. To love God above all, we have to receive his spirit of life in Christ, born again of His spirit. Then we love God above all, we will press toward the path that He has prepared in advance for us to walk.
Through the eyes of the spirit of Christ in us, we can perceive the truth of the beauty of the beatitudes. The gift of God’s Holy Spirit is given so we can bless God and so that we can bless others. God’s spirit separates us from the spirit of this world. His spirit differentiates us and separates us from an upside down world. Holy means separated according to the purpose for which He designed us… to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we were called.
Therefore Jesus said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added unto you. Missionary Jim Elliott said, he is no fool who loses that which he cannot keep to keep that which he cannot lose. Jesus said, what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul. He who saves his life shall lose it but he who loses his life for my sake shall save it.
What is it that you love? What do you desire most? To what do you aspire and strive to accomplish? You pursue that which you love. It’s not about the effort, but rather progressing toward the object of your love. You treasure what you love. Therefore Jesus said, treasure not treasures upon this earth where moth and rust doth corrupt. Instead seek treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and thieves do not break through and steal. For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.
Sin separates our hearts from God’s heart. We can run from God but we cannot hide. Wherever we go, he’s still there. When we turn around, repent, and forsake sin by returning to the Lord, 1 John 1:9 says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. According to John 3:20-21, Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought of God.
God met Pete at a moment of depression. Pete thought that he should be in the starting lineup but was called to pinch hit only periodically. Pedro Bourbon who later graduated to the Big Leagues and won consecutive World Series with the Cincinnati Reds had struck Pete out in a game that day. While Pete was reading Hebrews 12 in the New Living Translation, God spoke to his heart, “it hurts when a loving Father disciplines his son.” He said, “Pete, you know how to be an all star. You know how to be in the starting lineup and take pride in the praise and accolades of men. However, you don’t know how to sit on the bench. You don’t know the meaning of humility. On the bench, you’ll learn how to put your team mates first.. you’ll learn to cheer for their success and the success of the team. It’s not about your glory, it’s about loving others and then in loving your neighbor as yourself, you’ll learn how to love Jesus Christ.”
To love God above all we must be a citizen of God’s kingdom of heaven, born again of God’s spirt. We may be natural-born citizens of the United States, but more importantly we are spiritually born-again citizens of God’s heavenly kingdom. Therefore let your conversation, your behavior, your manner of living as citizens of heaven be as it becometh the gospel of Christ. The gospel is the good news of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
God has called us as ambassadors for Christ. An ambassador is the highest ranking official sent from his Sovreign Lord to represents the kingdom of heaven in a foreign land. As citizens of heaven, and as ambassadors for Christ we’re called to deliver a peace treaty from the kingdom of heaven to a world dead in trespasses and sin. Blessed are the peacemakers. This is our mission and our great co-mission… Go give ‘em Heaven!
… that we may ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
