Reconciliation Blessings
“Blessed are the peacemakers, …” Matt 5:9
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
The Word of God makes a loud call for peace with God and peace with fellow people many times. “Try to live at peace with everyone! Live a clean life. If you don't, you will never see the Lord” or “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Heb 12:14). Peace with God is achieved through holiness or righteousness, which is achieved primarily though faith (and works follow) in this dispensation of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God is at times disrupted by our own rebellious ways or sometimes by occurrences which cause us to question or doubt God; for instance difficult sickness, calamities like accidents robbing us of our loved ones, business disappointment, or even hard weather conditions.
Peace with people cannot come automatically either. Many relationships break down for reasons which when considered could be found to be small, simple and solvable; hence the lack of effort at reconciliation is responsible for much more war than the inherent issues themselves. Relationships among couples (intending to get or already married), parents and children, workmates, community members – all these relationships need just a bit of consistent cultivation without which walls and tensions start developing; and when these walls and tensions are looked at differently by any two parties, they are magnified and peace is squeezed out! The call is “Try to leave at peace with everyone!”
Adam Clarke in his Commentary on the Bible points us to cultivating, as far as you possibly can, a good understanding, both with Jews and Gentiles (people with different beliefs, whether you agree with them or not) – pursue peace with the same care, attention, and diligence, as beasts do their game; follow it through all places; trace it through all winding circumstances; and have it with all men, if you can with a safe conscience. The grand object of the Gospel is to make a complete change in people’s minds and manners; but the first object is the removal of enmity from the heart of man, that he may be disposed to accept of the salvation God has provided for him, on the terms which God has promised. The enmity or hostility in the heart of man is the grand hindrance to his salvation.
“God… through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2Cor 5:18).
God bless you all.