Building Real Relationships

One of the many outstanding qualities of Jesus was His sheer honesty.  He never left men in any doubt about what would happen to them if they chose to follow him. Jesus came "not to make life easy, but to make men great." 

He also taught us life’s challenges must be met with courage, therefore understanding the role of peacemaking is essential. We live in a society that wants so desperately to have peace that they are willing to have peace at any price. Whenever we speak of peace we must have a true understanding of what peace actually means.

We may ask ourselves the following:

Does peace mean the absence of conflict and war?

Does peace mean freedom from conflict or disagreement among people or groups of people?

Does peace imply that we will all get along?

Jesus encourages us to be peacemakers not peace-lovers.

Because of fear, far too many men and women will not engage in any form of conflict or disagreement. Peace-lovers will go to great lengths to keep the peace, often resulting in actually causing greater harm.

Those who love the idea of peace rather than real peacemaking will refuse to face situations where they might upset the balance of relationships. Christians who believe that being peace-lovers is sufficient to be called the sons of God are mistaken.

The peace that the Bible talks about does not come from the evasion of issues; it comes from facing them, dealing with them, and doing all that you can to bring resolution to establishing harmony and peace.

I am not always successful in bringing reconciliation and resolution, but I have spent a great deal of my life as a peacemaker. Only the peacemaker knows the pain of working to resolve differences, while others sit on the sidelines offering their advice and criticisms to problems they know little about.

Matthew 5:99 Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. 

War is hell but peace comes at a price