Peace with God

This blog is going to be discussing the many aspects of peace and peacemaking from a biblical perspective. Of course the Bible is often used to justify many agendas, and none of the posters on this page can completely escape some forms of bias. So, we want this to be a place for healthy discussion where we can search for truth together. Many of us want Christians (and especially Brethren churches) to understand the history of the Brethren Church and its nonviolent roots. It also seems the topic of peacemaking is not talked about much and we want to focus discussion on it, since it seems to be a theme running through the whole of the Bible.

In the future we may be talking about topics just as conflict resolution, just war theory, pacifism, revenge, and the many other applications of peacemaking in everyday life. But before delving into specific issues like that, I wanted to point out the basic message of scripture - that we can have peace with God through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The message of the gospel is simple, but not easy. In Romans, Paul says:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God......You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5: 1-2, 6-8

The message is simple: that God loves us to the extent that he will not tolerate separation from us indefinitely. Our sinfulness is not the final word. Jesus took upon himself the wrath of God that was reserved for me, and through it, I am completely accepted by God through faith in Jesus. Love has the final word. And God was willing to pay the price of all human sin himself.

But the message is not easy for me to comprehend. I find that I can't believe that God really does love me this much. I see my constant failings, my anger, my impatience, the way that everything naturally in me tends towards selfishness. How could God love a person like that? Of course there are good qualities in my life, or occasions when I do what is right. But the vast majority of my heart is something I would be ashamed to have the world see.

Christians can be great agents of peacemaking in the world because we understand that we are fully loved and accepted by God through the cross of Jesus. We understand that we are fully at peace with God. There is no defect in the work of the cross, it is all we need.

Of course the enormity and implications of this are greater than what we can discuss in a simple blog post. That's why we will keep going, discussing, and reminding each other along the way.

Ryan