Peacemaker 预览

We Are Peacemakers 

Did you know that you and I are peacemakers? In Matthew 5:9, Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Jesus asked us to be peacemakers, but we will never have peace with each other, or peace in our own souls until we have peace with God. Jesus came to bring peace between God and man. Peace on earth starts in each of our own hearts.

You may have heard that God is mad at you. He is not! Even if you have been far from God for years, He is excited to see you. He loves you! I want to take a moment and apologize to those of you who may have had a bad experience in church. I am sorry if people have over-complicated a relationship with Jesus.

Philippians 4:7 reminds us that we will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than we can even understand, and that His peace will guard our hearts and minds as we live in Him. But we learn in verses four through six what we must do in order to receive this peace:

-Be cheerful with a joyous celebration in every season of life. In the midst of hard seasons, and I have had a few, I needed to choose joy. Joy is not a feeling. Joy is a decision- it is the steel rod that runs through our back. Sometimes I want to fire off the text message … sometimes, it is hard to choose joy!!!

-PRAY-Tell God everything! Quit whining to everyone else, and instead talk to God

-Be grateful!

Everyone wants to be grateful.

Who wants to be ungrateful?

The question is: what’s your plan to become a more grateful person?

How are you going to do that? Nobody just drifts into gratitude.

We say “thank you” when someone does something for us. Or “thank you” when we are given a gift - and we should! But, if we start to think we will be grateful to the extent we receive things, or more good we have, the more grateful we’ll become, then gratitude becomes a product of our circumstances.

And gratitude is a decision of the heart, not a result of circumstances.

Today, I encourage you to write out what you can be grateful for and to write out the name of one person with whom you need to make peace. Let’s become peacemakers, together!