DAY EIGHT: Happy Are the Peacemakers

The good life, a life of happiness, is loving God, self, and all of humanity.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). This beatitude is intertwined with hungering and thirsting for righteousness and being merciful (vv. 7–8). Becoming a peacemaker requires that we have first been brought into peace with God through the forgiveness that comes by grace through faith in Jesus. It then comes from the overflow of being empowered by God the Holy Spirit to live a righteous and merciful life in response to the gospel that we have believed.

Like a river flooded by pouring rain, we are deluged by God’s own life. God’s righteousness has always been about embodying God’s love, and God’s love is always merciful. The good life—a life of happiness—is loving God, self, and all of humanity. In the kingdom of God, there is “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). Peace is not passive. It is the intentional act of God in Christ to reconcile us unto himself through the cross, thus enabling us to extend peace to others. Making peace is hard, happy, gospel-work.

John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, said these words a few hundred years ago. They were true then, and they are true now:

God is the joy of his heart and the desire of his soul . . . happy in God, yea, always happy, as having in him a “wellspring of water springing up into everlasting life,” and overflow in his soul with peace and joy . . . True religion, or a heart right with God and man, implies happiness, as well as holiness.(1)

God’s kind of happiness is deeper and more satisfying than simply something good happening. The happiness of God is a quiet confidence that enters the arena of life and believes it’s going to be okay because my redeemer lives, his redemptive purposes will stand, and I will stand with the one who triumphed over sin and the grave. He works all things “for the good of those who love [him], who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

The happiness of God is like a compass that keeps our bearings straight on the narrow path that leads to life.

The happiness of God is like the North Star because it’s found in the unchanging character of our faithful God.

The happiness of God is like a lighthouse that guides sailors back home as they journey the rough seas.

READ Ephesians 1:5-6.

How does this passage illustrate that we have peace with God because peace found us?

PRAY

Jesus, our King, release your peacemaking love through me. May I cast seeds of peace wherever I go so they can take root, mature, and produce fruit to feed the world. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, amen.

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Fred Sanders, Wesley on the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), 86–87.