Thanks to Adam and Eve and their “fall”, we are all hardwired with certain tendencies that aren’t so pretty and sweet. One tendency is to get angry. But, thanks to Jesus and His sacrifice, He gave us a higher standard. He calls us to be peacemakers \u2014 not just peacekeepers. Peacekeepers usually avoid conflict, but peacemakers resolve conflict and reconcile relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We need a world of peacemakers! And, that includes you and me. The Bible promises this: \u201cThose who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness\u201d (James 3:18). We planted a lot of seed on our Oklahoma ranch. We had huge vegetable gardens and we found that planting a few seeds could yield a bumper crop. We also had an apple orchard that started from a few apple seeds. Those good seeds resulted in many apple trees and delicious apples that made the best pies and jams. It\u2019s the law of sowing and reaping. The same is true in planting seeds of anger and hate or peace and love. If we plant seeds of hate, we\u2019ll reap anger, bitterness and trouble. But the Bible says if we plant seeds of peace, we will reap a harvest of peace, kindness, and goodness in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the most important life skills we will ever learn is conflict resolution. Let\u2019s consider a bitter argument between a husband and wife. Someone must make the first move toward peace. I remember sleeping on the far edge of our bed because I wasn’t about to start the peace conversation. I waited for my husband to make the first move. These many years later, I found the better person is the one who takes the initiative to resolve conflict and make amends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus took the initiative to show mercy to us. \u201cWhile we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son\u201d (Romans 5:8,10). Jesus didn\u2019t wait for us to apologize. He didn\u2019t even wait for us to feel bad about our behavior. Jesus made the first move. And he wants us to do the same thing. He wants us to call for Peace Summits \u2013 where the expected result is always peace!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know this blog today comes from God’s prompting to me. More than anything, He wants us to live in peace with each other. \u201cBlessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.\u201d (Matthew 5:9) Being a peacemaker is one who doesn\u2019t come forward with accusations and ways they’ve been hurt or speaking about whose fault it was. Peacemakers start with humility \u2013 \u201cI apologize for anything I did or said that created this conflict. Will you please forgive me? Jesus made the first move — shouldn’t we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanks to Adam and Eve and their “fall”, we are all hardwired with certain tendencies that aren’t so pretty and sweet. One tendency is to get angry. But, thanks to Jesus and His sacrifice, He gave us a higher standard. He calls us to be peacemakers \u2014 not just peacekeepers. Peacekeepers usually avoid conflict, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17836,17838,17837,17835],"tags":[17643,6031,17832,1907,1210,10456,1321,17833,40,17830,17834,4081,17831,17829],"class_list":["post-12683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflict-resolution","category-peace-summit","category-peace-treaty","category-peacemaker","tag-angry","tag-apple-orchard","tag-apple-seeds","tag-blessed","tag-blog","tag-bumper-crop","tag-children-of-god","tag-conflict-resolution","tag-inspiration","tag-peace-summit","tag-peace-treaty","tag-peacemaker","tag-plant-seeds-of-peace","tag-reconcile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12685,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12683\/revisions\/12685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}