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MAKE PEACE, NOT WAR
Should men be able to negotiate peace between Israel and Palestine, they are not, thereby, called “children of God.” While such endeavors are certainly noble and of grave concern to the whole world, efforts at national peace would be only a secondary application of Jesus’ pronouncement of blessedness in Matthew 5:9 – “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.”
“Children of God" or, literally, “sons of God” is a special term denoting a relation of saved people to the heavenly Father and, in order to be a “son of God,” one must be baptized into Christ – “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ,” (Galatians 3:26-27). One who has been forgiven of sins is born into God’s family and is, consequently, at peace with God. Therefore, one cannot be called a Son of God who is not first at peace with God.
In seeking peace on a national level, diplomats of specified governments usually draft an agreement that necessitates compromise on the part of all nations involved. If peace comes at all, it necessarily means there must be a “give-and-take” attitude. Not so with God and man. Being at peace with God does not come as a result of compromise between God and sin but rather comes as a result of man’s meeting God’s terms by which grace and forgiveness are extended from God. Hence, Jesus is called “our peace” and his gospel is a “gospel of peace,” (Ephesians 2:11-17; 6:15).
This peaceful relationship with God requires that one seek the same kind of peace for others and one becomes an active peacemaker between God and man who teaches his fellow man the gospel of peace (Acts 10:24-36). Then, all who are children of one Heavenly Father must pursue peace among his children – “…be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you,” (2 Corinthians 13:11).
The need is for peacemakers, who through the purity of heavenly wisdom, seek for true peace by making men right with God. “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace,” (James 3:17-18). – Jim R. Everett
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