Blessed are the peacemakers,
Matthew 5:9
for they will be called children of God.
Table of Contents
It is clear that no matter who wins the election, no one is going to win.
It is clear to me, and I think it is becoming clear to many that we have come to a place in American society where the pot has been stirred so much that no matter what happens this election, our country will be even more divisive, angry, and violent.
As the Vice wrote, we are in the midst and preparing for an increase of what looks like a new civil war.
I was meditating on this reality and what it means for Christians to live in this time. Seeing that we are the light of the world and the context of internal war being around us, I felt that the prophetic position we as Christians need to take is unique this season.
I believe our call as Christians this seasons is to bear the mantle of being peacemakers in 2020.
What that means it that we need to lay our political ideologies and our gloating aside, come out of the stirring pot known as our country, and operate as peacemakers for the time of war coming within our nation.
In a world of conflict, where there is so much unrest, I believe this is how we bear the image of God to a dying world.
In order to be peacemakers, we require some things.
We need peace within ourselves
We cannot be peacemakers if we ourselves are not at peace.
What 2020 is is a cauldron of triggers and conflicts. Whether it’s the stress and scare of COVID, the social unrest, the natural disasters raging throughout our country, the pressures of 2020 are coming to war against everyone’s deepest internal places of safety and security.
I think it’s clear that the anger and rage we see in our world today is all the junk and pent up frustrations and insecurities within people that are causing the finger pointing and wishing the world around them would be at peace.
Much like the root causes of domestic violence, when there’s no internal peace, it trickles out from our hearts into our environments.
As I wrote in my article No, I’m Not Afraid of 2020, we as Christians bear the privilege of walking in fearlessness because God is bigger than any crisis our world is throwing at us.
Where do you draw your sense of peace from?
One of the biggest indicator of whether you have internal peace this season is whether you can answer this question: “Are you waiting for the world to go back to normal?”
If you are, be alarmed that you have still placed your internal sense of happiness and joy on your circumstances. Be freed by the truth that the world will never return back to normal.
Yet be freed by the truth that, despite that fact, God offers you a stable ground and foundation for joy
That is where we draw our sense of internal peace from.
Get peace, so you can offer peace.
We need to extend peace to others
We need a holy grace to be peacemakers in a time of great anger and rage.
Much like the degradation that happens when couples fight, there comes a point in which people are so angry that it is difficult to make meaningful deescalation.
It is difficult to operate in a place of ministry when there is a shout match.
Such a shout match has our world become.
But that’s the beauty of being called a peacemaker. The peacemaking is a grace that is not from ourselves, it is from the God who is a peacemaker himself.
What does being a peacemaker look like for you? Can you extend the hand of friendship to those who disagreed with you, vilify you, or even hate you?
Can you look someone in the eye and say, “No matter who you vote for, I will be your friend and your brother and your sister.“?
Such is the mark of a disciple who truly loves Jesus more than the ways of the world.
Futhermore
I believe God has called his people to be peacemakers this season.
It starts with having peace within ourselves. And then extending the grace of peace to others.
Can you see your prophetic role this season to make peace?