[theadamjohnson]

What Is A Peacemaker?

You probably saw the title for this and thought immediately thought to yourself that you are the answer to the question but before you in the title.  You said maybe something to the effect of: “Me.  I’m a peacemaker because I am reserved, not quick to shout, and I don’t post controversial stuff on my Twitter account”.

I’m sorry to tell you but that is not a peacemaker.  That my friend is a peacekeeper.  There is a stark difference between the one who keeps peace and the one who makes peace.  But what is that difference?  Are there any similarities between those two distinctly different roles?  Why does Jesus Christ himself call us as Christians to be peacemakers in Matthew 5:9?  I will try my best to answer all or most of these questions so I hope you are still reading.  Let’s begin….

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The Difference Between a Maker & a Keeper

We have already established that there is a difference between someone who makes peace and someone who keeps peace. It is known that peacekeepers generally tend to avoid/ignore conflict to prevent a disturbance of peace.  This sounds noble until you question who is the person reaping the benefit of the peace.  

Is it the person who is keeping the peace or is it the person in the midst of trouble/conflict?

If the peacekeeper simply just avoids conflict and refuses to acknowledge the existence of conflict then they themselves have peace but those around them may experience a lack of peace because of the lack of empathy from those that could help.  

Peacemakers on the other hand strive for the peace of all.  Not just those within the four walls of their church but the peace of those outside of it.

How do peacemakers do this?

By sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and putting faith into action with works that meet needs.  Notice I said that the Gospel and works together.  It’s very important that it stays together as well in order for the works to have purpose and the purpose is the saving blood of Christ.  Taking a look at John 9 where Jesus heals a man born blind, you will notice that Jesus heals the man and then Jesus disappears only to reappear later on in verse 35:

Jesus heard that they had thrown the man out, and when he found him, he asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

“Who is he, Sir, that I may believe in him?” he asked.

Jesus answered, “You have seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

“I believe, Lord!” he said, and he worshipped him.

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.”

Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and asked him, “We aren’t blind too, are we?”

“If you were blind,” Jesus told them, “you wouldn’t have sin.  But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”  (CSB Translation)

We can see hear that even in Jesus’ response to the deceptive Pharisees that the Son of Man makes peace with His carefully selected vocabulary rather than trying to select the most scathing of phrases.  Peacemakers create peace using conversation and action that are all backed up by the word of God.  Peacekeepers protect what they subconsciously perceive as ‘their peace’ by ignoring the actions of Jesus.  What I mean by that is that doing things like reaching out to the less fortunate or preaching the Gospel disturbs comfort which is a large part of someone’s perceived personal peace because you have to sacrifice that on some level in order to bring peace to others.

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Jesus Told Us To Be Peacemakers

In Matthew 5 we find Jesus up on a mountain delivering the now famous Sermon on the Mount.  In Matthew 5:9 Jesus tells us this:

Blessed are the peacemakers,

For they will be called sons of God. (CSB Translation)

Now we also find some language around making peace from James the Just (Jesus’ brother) in the book of James chapter 3 verse 18:

And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace. (CSB Translation)

So in James we are told that we have righteousness sown in the peace given to us by God through salvation which should cause us to cultivate peace in our daily lives between us and other people.  We want to do this because all people are created by and endowed with the image of God even though they may be actively trying to distort or wipe that image of God away.  Peace is a result of the Holy Spirit through being saved by grace and faith in Christ’s death and resurrection.  Paul speaks about the Spirit (or Holy Ghost if you prefer) in his letter to the Romans where he states this in chapter 8 verse 14:

For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. (CSB Translation)

I know that “Jesus told us too” isn’t necessarily going to get everyone into gear, especially if you are not currently following Christ.  What I want to point out is that peacemaking should be a by-product, a result of a Christian’s faith in Christ.  It should not ever be an afterthought or a maybe.  That doesn’t go to say however that we won’t fail.  We will.

But there is grace.  The same grace that brought us from death to life can give you forgiveness for your shortcomings and bring you not only loving conviction but also strength to pursue the things of God.

BE A PEACEMAKER, NOT A PEACEKEEPER.

[theadamjohnson]

Sin In The World of “The Handmaid’s Tale”

I wanna start off by saying this:

The Hulu Original series The Handmaid’s Tale is something to be experienced, especially if you hold a biblical worldview.

I say this because I was thinking about the series and how it particularly deals with sin.  It is my belief that the way this series (possibly the original book as well, haven’t read it yet) deals with sin in a manner that is extreme, but is all the more similar to some of us in Christ and our way of approaching the topic of sin.

. . . :::SPOILERS FOR THE HANDMAID’S TALE AHEAD::: . . .

So in The Handmaid’s Tale we are introduced to Gilead, a hostile nation birthed from an extremist group of Christians called the “Sons of Jacob” that now runs the former United States of America.  This Bible-based extremist group coordinated multiple attacks (murdering the President and Congress for example) in order to create a state of Martial Law through which they could initiate a take over and restructuring of the US Government. 

The Sons of Jacob themselves have a core set of beliefs about God and the Bible that are more traditional.  For example, if you are apart of the LGBTQ community, you are considered a “gender traitor” in the eyes of God (according to the government of Gilead).  Once the Sons of Jacob had power they began suppressing women by freezing all accounts that belonged to women and forcibly causing employers to fire all women employees.  This was done in order to begin work on establishing the handmaids.  Fertile women were forcibly gathered and put through harsh training in order to be the handmaids in which the important leaders of the Sons of Jacob would be able to go into the handmaids to produce children for their barren wives (before going into the handmaids, the masters read Genesis 30:1-4).  This is the purpose of the handmaids to serve the wives and masters by way of surrogate childbirth as the world itself in The Handmaid’s Tale is underneath a fertility crisis that is largely blamed on women by the leaders of the Sons of Jacob.

In this world, sin is dealt with by physical means.  An example is one of the masters engages in the act of lust with a handmaid and is punished by having his right hand surgically removed in order to hold very literally to Matthew 5:30. There is also a sequence which involves the handmaids being tricked into thinking they will all be murdered for an act of defiance in order to have the handmaids keeper (they are called ‘aunts’) to misquote scripture in order to tell them that they should fear the Lord and his punishment (apparently these leaders can enact divine punishment in place of God).

So if you are reading this as a Christian in today’s world, understand this:

Purely physical acts cannot solve a spiritual issue.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says in Chapter 6:

“Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength.  Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the Devil.  For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.”  (Ephesians 6:10-12)

In this scripture we find Paul encouraging the members of the church at Ephesus to be aware that the war we are in on this earth is not physical, but spiritual.  Even King Jesus himself talked of the importance of recognizing the spiritual when He spoke to Nicodemus in John 3:

“I assure you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.  Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again.  The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”  (John 3:5-8)

Jesus was very clear that the spirit is very important and that the spirit being transformed is of great importance.  Therefore, we have no choice but to safely conclude that trying remedy a spiritual disease(sin) with purely physical methods is as effective as brushing your teeth with Nutella.

It’s pointless.

Too many are getting caught up in cycles of sin while foolishly saying they have given to Christ but are still trying to hold onto sin(s) in order to maintain some sense of control, kind of like the people of God in the book of Judges.

You CANNOT do enough works or read enough scripture to eradicate sin in your life.  You have to FIRST give your soul unto the King of Kings and Son of God, Jesus Christ (see Romans 3:28).  Christ is the one who gives life because Jesus is life (see John 11:25) and it is through Christ atoning sacrifice on the cross that we can come humbly before His throne and give your ENTIRE life unto the Son.

It is troubling though to see so many following self-help/think better books and trying to do methods that may HELP in avoiding falling to temptation but are NOT replacements for being sanctified.

How can we be sanctified?  The cross.

Final thought and I said it earlier:

Purely physical acts cannot solve a spiritual issue.

[theadamjohnson]

Creativity and other thoughts.

(s/o to Pixabay.com for the free image)

Have you ever just sat and marveled at art?

Like really sat down and looked at a painting, drawing, or album artwork in order to just soak in the creativity of the artist?

Maybe your looking at the picture above and you are saying ‘I wonder what the artist was feeling when they did this’ or maybe you are asking ‘What made the creator of this piece use this color here and that color there’.  

If you have ever done this then I challenge you, the reader, as a carefully created and constructed creation of God the Father to view others as creations by a master artist.

Why you may ask?

Because it is simply what we are.  We are creations with a crafted and given purpose that was started when we were knit together within the wombs of our mothers (Psalm 139:13).  It is also imperative to understand that if we as Christians believe that in Adam all died (i.e. original sin) then we therefore have to believe that all created humans bear the image of God (Imago Dei) as told in Genesis 1:26-27:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.  They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”  

So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female.

You see the problem is that not enough Christians really grasp that idea.  I should know, I used to be one.  I would call myself a follower but all I did was divide and make people feel worse than they started.  I was more known for what I was against than who I was for.  I started seeing through the help of some good friends/mentors that being about Jesus is more important than the issues I would love to stand on.

Does that change my strong passion for standing up to heresy when necessary?  No.  It just redefines it by Jesus.

Does it mean I don’t care about things like abortion or ethnic partiality?  No.  It just redefines the way I approach those topics by looking at Jesus first.

I mention all that to get to this simple point:

If Jesus and the Bible are like above art, we analyze it until we come to a conclusion.  Then we take that conclusion and we either run with it or we try to sit down so the Creator can tell us what He meant when he crafted the art.

[theadamjohnson]

https://genius.com/Aha-gazelle-boot-camp-lyrics