Prov 16:7
When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord,
He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Mt 5:9
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.

Rom 12:18
If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

Phil 4:7
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Gen 3:15/Mt 10:34/2Cor 6:15

When I examine myself, I realize that though I have become bold for the Gospel, am not much of a peacemaker; whether this is merely from the perspective of the world or also from scripture, this am still to discern.

When I reflect on the person Jesus Christ, I realise He is the complete revelation of God as not merely TRUTH but GRACE as well (Jn 1:17). Justification is by grace for the Bible teaches we are justified by GRACE ALONE and for reason being, that Christ died for us while we were still sinners (Rom 5:6). None in their right mind can say they deserved Jesus… God’s unblemished Lamb to be slain for them. In this I realise, the grace God exhibits to all His people in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today the God fearing man is defined as one who shuts up and says nothing but the Bible teaches Holy Fear as one who desires to willing do the good pleasure of God, as David who stepped out of the line of trembling Israelites and stood up to Goliath (1Sam 17:11).

A look at the Ten Commandments (Ex 20) shows that a person’s foremost reverence must be unto God, such are the first four commandments, while the other six speak of the holy requisite of God’s people loving their neighbour at par with themselves. If a person’s foremost reverence is not unto God then he/she takes that place that belongs to God for themselves, from their lawless nature that transpired from Adam (Gen 2:17), passed to them through Original Sin. Such societies of Godless fools are totalitarian is getting what they want from their self-righteousness, weather that be through murder or thievery it doesn’t quite matter as these are automatically redefined from their lawless nature to suit their convenience.

Like the counterfeit law of the masses, the Law of God, which requires the individual to LOVE is also totalitarian. For unlike the lawless masses who are characterised by their impatience, God is patient with even those who are on the road to eternal destruction (Rom 9:22). As individuals we are thereby called to be so patient (1Cor 13:4) with the wicked as to not resist them (Mt 5:39) and turn the other cheek in love (Mt 5:44) but we are to do all this, not from the unholy fear of repercussion from an ungodly society but from holy fear out of obedience unto a holy God, whom we trust.

The right thing must therefore be done for the right reason and we cannot fool God in this matter. As from Deut 6:8, the Moral Law was required by the Godly to be bound on their forehead and their right hand, so as to imply that the Godly think and act according to the Law of God i.e. according to God’s good pleasure. It would be foolish to act according to the Law but think from unholy fear, as such would not be from wisdom which comes from the fear of God (Prov 1:7). The Law of God was also put on the door frames of the houses that families may reckon as Joshua did in Josh 24:15 “…as for me and my household we serve the Lord.”

Hence the peace of God comes from knowing God first, by people who place their hope in the good pleasure of God and not in living lives that are acceptable or follows after the wayward/unbelieving trend in society at large. There is no lasting hope for those who do not trust in God, because outside Christ people are merely possessed by or are handed over to their lusts (Rom 1:24-27), which in turn harms themselves (Prov 8:36) because people who don’t have the Lord to rely on, are left with people like themselves to rely on, who have no desire or capacity to lead them to find hope in Christ! This is what empowers destruction of self and neighbour from what you could term “crab mentality” in a Godless society.

The terms of lasting peace (Is 11:1-11) therefore which Christ shall bring about (Col 1:16-20) is knowing God (Hab 2:14) from selfless love so as consider our neighbour as walking in our shoes. For as Isaiah prophesised (Is14:5-20), authority has been given to the Prince of Peace i.e. Jesus Christ (Is 9:6) over everything in the Great Commission (Mt 28:18-20), even over the prince of the powers of the air i.e. Satan and his dominion (Lk 10:18/Eph 2:2); to usher peace into this world.

So let’s not lean on our own understanding (Prov 3:5) which is susceptible to unholy fear that makes for the kind of news we listen to or find interesting but let us trust in God to usher in His peace to a broken world.