Experiencing God's PeaceНамуна

Peace With Others

We often look for peace in our relationships. The easiest way to have peace is to first have peace with God followed by the peace of God. This allows us to see things from a heavenly perspective, which will infiltrate our earthly relationships. 

But we don’t always have that viewpoint, do we? Sometimes our lack of peace with others is because we’re stubborn and don’t want to meet in the middle when we don’t agree. We think arrogantly that our way is the best way. Another reason we don’t have peace with others is because we don’t want things to go well for them, either because they’ve hurt us or we’re jealous of them. We don’t want them to flourish, but instead want them to fail.

But we can learn how to live in peace with others from a variety of verses in God’s Word. Here are a few:

• When someone persecutes us, we bless them in return (Romans 12:14). 
• Never pay back evil with more evil but instead be honorable (Romans 12:17).
• Don’t retaliate with insults but pay back with a blessing (1 Peter 3:9).

Even when we’ve blessed those who persecuted us, have chosen not to pay back evil, and been honorable in our actions, there still may not be peace. Why? Because people are people, and as good as we try to be and as much good as we try to do, we still fall short of perfection. Not every relationship can be salvaged, but let’s do everything we can to ensure that we’ve done our part. 

• Let’s love and be tenderhearted toward each other. 
• Let’s believe and hope for the best for others. 
• Let’s consider things from their point of view.
• Let’s apologize when we need to make wrongs right. 
• Let’s pray for God to do a work in us and also a work in them.

And let’s ultimately remember that people are not our enemies. We have a real spiritual enemy who loves it when we battle and accuse each other. If we blame people, circumstances, or struggles for our stress and lack of peace, then we are inevitably giving them control over whether or not we live in peace. Let’s not give anything or anyone in our lives this kind of power. There is only One peace-bringer, and His name is Jesus. He is the Prince of all Peace.