Blessed Are the Peacemakers

“Blessed Are the peacemakers; they will be called children of God.”

What does it take to be a peacemaker? Certainly there are some skills that individuals can use to maintain peace in their own relationships. There are other tools that third parties can utilize to create peace between others who need some help getting along.

Peacemakers begin with a motivation that is incredibly important. In fact, this motivation is a must. To be a peacemaker you must place a high value on relationships. If relationships are not important to you, your drive to have peace will be low.

There is good reason to value relationships. Surely you are aware that relationships are important to God. Paul wrote about his “ministry of reconciliation” (getting people and God back into relationship).

“For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:14-19).

Christ died for all … to bring us back into relationship with God! When he did that, he created a relationship between the people he saved. He expects that we, who together share relationship with him in the Spirit, will make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit peaceful (Ephesians 4:3).

If you don’t care whether we have a good relationship, you will not put any effort toward being a peacemaker when we are at odds. If it doesn’t concern you when you see a family warring, you’ll have no interest in intervening. If you don’t really care about being close to your family, you won’t pursue peace with your spouse or children.

If relationships are close to God’s heart, they should be close to mine. Isn’t that true? God went to extremes to create peace because he values relationships. What do your efforts toward peace say about the value you put on them? That’s Life at Work!