Advent 2023

Week 3 - Peace

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

This familiar passage, like all of the Beatitudes that begin Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount, typically uses a minimum number of words to say a great deal. 

Those who make peace among fellow human beings–even those who try without apparent success–are called “children of God.” That is something that we would all like to be called. Children of God.

What is also typical of the Beatitudes is that the few words give us much to consider. Just what is peacemaking in a world that is full of disputes, hatred, and conflict?

Many of us are content to confine our peacemaking to saying that yes, we love our neighbors as ourselves. We may go further and actively avoid conflict, trying never to start an argument or to participate in one.

But is this real peacemaking? These words of Jesus seem to call us to go beyond our own feelings of comfort in saying that we love others and we avoid conflict. Instead, I think they call us to action. 

God calls us to make peace, not to avoid conflict. He calls us to bring his message of grace and love to others. He calls us to attempt in every way that we can to bring people together, to listen to what people have to say, to find common ground on which to stand. 

Peacemaking is not easy and in our world and is rarely successful. Yet when we use our feeble efforts to make peace, we can be confident that we are doing so with the strength of God behind us. In today’s world, few things are more important than our efforts to make peace.

Prayer: Our father, show us ways every day that we can act in your name, and make peace among our brothers and sisters, so that we may be truly called the children of God. Amen.

This devotional was written by Jim Stovall and read by Leslie Ragland.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

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First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.