“The LORD will bless His people with peace.”

Psalm 29:11

Restoring broken relationships.

Many years ago my wife and I bought a Tiffany print for £50, (a large outlay for students!). The picture was full of vibrant colours, as you looked out onto a landscape through a medieval window, and I would often find myself drawn to the picture. Many years later I went online to look at how much another print would cost. In looking at a picture of the one I already owned I came to realise that, over the years, I had not noticed how much it had faded – or that the colours now bore little similarity to the original. I now knew the difference and could not restore my picture. Eventually I took it down, and then threw it out. Many of us feel that our lives lack lustre and write ourselves off – yet we have a Father who can restore even the most damaged of lives.

Sometimes we struggle, feel like a failure and think that we cannot possibly get back to where we once were with the Lord, yet God has always been in the business of restoring broken relationships (Gen 3:15; Isaiah 11:7-9).  Think about it!  God is the One who reached out to Adam and Eve when they had fallen. God is the One who brought conviction, challenge and chastisement to a wayward King David (2 Sam 12:1-3), because whilst He hates sin, He very much loves the sinner. God is the One who went after the lost sheep of Israel (Matt 10:6), yet also reaches out to the individual who strays (Luke 15:4).

Despite being so amazingly powerful we find that God is the One who says, “Come now let us reason together” to a rebellious nation (Isaiah 1:18), and does not always treat us as our sins deserve, (Psalm 103:10).  His Son was birthed into an often wayward and oppressed Judaism caught up in a struggling world; but why? To offer all men the opportunity of forgiveness, and the restoration of a broken relationship with the One who loves us most.

God is love (1 John 4:8), and it is in love that prophecy concerning Christ was given in this way: “… to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”           (Isaiah 9:6)

In John 3:16 we see that God’s love is an intense love that has always been present. The word ‘loved’ (in John 3:16) is in the past tense and points us back to “In the beginning” (John 1:1, Rev 13:8). Yet we can go further back than this because eternal life was promised before time began (Titus 1:2). God has never been taken by surprise,  and despite knowing how rebellious man would become, He still chose to make a way for us to come home. He is in the business of restoring broken relationships – through Jesus.

“As the one whom God has sent Jesus is irreplaceable; as the new man he is the pattern to which we may conform ourselves. As the divine conqueror he triumphs over the false authorities of the fallen world; as the Son of Man he exercises authority over the redeemed world. As the Lord of time he confers unique significance on each moment, fashioning time into history; as a participant in time he stands in relation to other moments in time as they stand in relation to each other and to his moment.”

Prof O. O’Donovan, in Revelation and Moral Order, p144.

Peace I leave with you.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  (John 14:1)

Think about the above verse; at a time of great turmoil and difficulty, and when most of the disciples were about to desert Him, Jesus sought to encourage them with these words and goes on to say, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:1, 27).

The peace that Rome imposed (Pax Romana) came about through subjugation and oppression as those in power controlled the masses in order to enhance their own lives. The peace Jesus offers is nothing like this.

The peace that Jesus offers is a peace that is the reality and effect of reconciliation with God: He alone can bring us home. He alone can truly set us free from destructive thought patterns and unbalanced minds. He is the All – Powerful One who offers freedom, wholeness and well being, and His peace is like nothing else on earth; so what is it like?  His peace is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of Person. His peace is the presence of One who brings about the re-establishment of right relationships with God, self and others.

Biblically speaking peace is all about restoration, and an example of this, (at a very basic level) is seen in the words of Exodus 21:35-36.  In these verses God states that if an ox that was known to be dangerous, gored and killed an ox belonging to another man, then the owner should pay ox for ox. The word ‘pay’ used in this verse is shalom (peace), which literally means, ‘to make whole.’  Other pictures speaking of bringing things back to how they should be can be seen in an estranged son being brought back into the family home, or a young child learning that they are loved and precious, even though they have felt such a failure.  How does this happen? Through Jesus.

Throughout His three year ministry we see Jesus speaking into broken relationships and bringing healing and wholeness as He fellowshipped with social and religious outcasts (Mt 11:19; Luke 17:11-16). In His ministry we see Jesus loving the unlovely and not writing off those who had fallen by the wayside. He spent time in the home of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:5f), healed the centurion’s servant (Matt 8:8f), and gave life back to the daughter of a synagogue ruler (Luke 8:49f).  Jesus is the One who dealt with an adulteress (John 8:3ff) in a way that revealed compassion and love; yet did not overlook her sin. Jesus is the One whom so many people have found forgiveness, healing and restoration through His work and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the One who cast out demons and helped people bring about change even in the most debilitating of circumstances, and brings hope into seemingly hopeless situations (Luke 7:11; 7:36f). All of this, in a very real way, is the way of peace, the restoring of relationships through the intervention of divine love.

From all of this we see that the presence of God’s dominion does not consist in signs of worldly judgement, but of mercy and grace extended to all human beings (Mt 5:45, Luke 6:27).  He taught those around him that they should have respect for all people, and that those who wanted to be greatest needed to have the heart of a servant (Mk 10:43-45).

Peace: Part of God’s Character.

Peace is part of God’s character and scripture refers to Him as, ‘the God of peace’ (Romans 15:33). His peace results in wholeness and integrity of living that blossoms and flourishes no matter the opposition.  The opposite of this is suffering and chaos, when we allow anything in the created order to come between God and us. This could be anything from a negative view of self-based on the words of others, or wrong goals and ambitions. To be intact and whole, we need to be putting God first, and understand ourselves from His perspective. We are His sons and daughters, brought into His family through the work of His Son – the bringer of true peace.

Shalom peace is all about what normal life should be like with our heavenly father. For example, it is not normal to think of yourself as a failure just because you have not succeeded in life in the way that the world expects you to succeed. Don’t write yourself off – God does not see you as worthless, but as His and a work in progress.

“Two people may have radically different reaction upon finding an uncut diamond. One person has no concept of its value, because it does not glitter and looks no different than a piece of broken glass. In all likelihood he will throw it away because he sees it as worthless. The other person is an expert on uncut diamonds, and realises that he has found something of great value.”

Rabbi Tverski in Spiritually, page 86.

You are of great value – because God says so.

Judgement and Peace.

 In Matthew 10 we read words that, at first glance, could seem to go against what we have been looking at. Therefore, in order to catch the flavour of what is being said in these verses we look at the link between peace with judgment.

 Matt 10:34-36 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’”

In our present day society most of us would associate judgement with being sentenced or acquitted in a court of law. Yet the biblical words for judging and judgement convey a much more powerful picture. This is because the biblical words have the connotation of “to arrange,” or “to put in order again.” Think of it this way: In your minds think of three jigsaw puzzles that are accidentally pushed off the window-sill of a second-floor flat by a young child. The jigsaws fall to the ground and get mixed up. The rain comes down and some of the colouring is washed off the pieces, and the wind blows other pieces away. Whilst you and I have no hope of putting the puzzles back together again, God does. He sees and knows all things – even the bits that are missing in our thinking – and He is the One who can put things back as they should be. This helps us see an aspect of judgement, which is, “to arrange” /  “ to put in order again.”

Only God holds the full blueprint of life. Only He knows exactly what we would have been like if we had not damaged ourselves with sin, or been damaged by others. Only God really knows how much wrong attitudes and thought processes have impacted our lives, and he is the only One who can clearly see how our thinking may need to change. He is the One who judges accurately, and the main aim of God’s judgement is not condemnation, (John 3:17; Romans 8:1) but the restoration of wholeness.  However there will be those around us who do not like this, and division may occur. Jesus did not come to bring the so-called peace of political correctness; He came to set us free. This is why Jesus spoke of coming with a sword (Mathew 10): to destroy evil and put things in their right order.

Seeing that judgment speaks of arranging and putting things in the right order helps us understand David’s words when he says,  “ “Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, according to my integrity, O Most High.”  (Psalm 7:8).   David was saying that he really wanted to do things the right way, but recognised that he needs God’s help to put things in the right order in His heart and mind. It is through this judgement that wholeness comes about in and through God’s gracious intervention. He is the One who helps us, heals us, and encourages us to think correctly about self, relationships, and the world we live in. So how are you doing?

God wants to help.

A clear example of Jesus’ desire to help us think the right way is seen in His words to the woman who touched His prayer shawl and found healing (Luke 7:48). Up until that point this woman must have felt as if she was on the outside looking in. Suffering and illness can often make us feel separate from others, and apart from this, in her day there was the suspicion that illness came through wrongdoing.

This woman, who was so bound up in her gynaecological problems, still saw something in Jesus that made her run the gauntlet of the crowd, so to speak, and reach out to touch His prayer-shawl. She was instantly healed, yet was not allowed to slip away through the crowd as Jesus asked who’d touched Him. In His question Jesus was inviting her to engage in conversation with Him, since God had more in store for her.

This woman could have crept away and gone through life thinking she had almost stolen a miracle. Jesus points out that she had been healed because of God grace and mercy, and that she could go in peace – that is fully accepted and restored.  Let us all be encouraged to reach out to Him.

The Prince of Peace.

In Isaiah 9:6 we read that Jesus is called the Prince of Peace. But why is He spoken of as the Prince of Peace and not the King of Peace?

In Isaiah’s day the kings, son  – the prince – would be the one who would go out and deal with trouble in the kingdom. This is why the word ‘Prince’ to the Hebrew mind, speaks of ‘the devouring man; the one who holds dominion over.”  The Messiah – the Prince of Peace – would come to deal with all that sought to destroy harmony in His Father’s universe. Therefore this scripture is a comfort, yet also a warning of what to expect.

In His ministry we see Jesus disrupting the oppressive thinking present in the Roman Empire, and the dead religious pseudo-peace of Judaism. He came to destroy the authority of fallen man, which so often cripples, distorts and separates us from others. He came to break our trust and dependence on self, so that we can embrace wholeness and healing in Him. Jesus is the true Judge, and the picture of a judge in His day was that of one who brings freedom. Jesus knows exactly how all things should be. He is the way to perpetual life – the door to life. This is why He says, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture”  (John 10:9-10). So be encouraged.

His Spirit is with us….

The Spirit of God who was present at creation (Gen 1:2), is present with us today, through the work of Christ,  (1 Cor 3:16), but do we really seek His help?

Are we willing to allow Him to help us think the right way so that we can know the fruit of all that He has done in our lives? He is the One who can keep us in perfect peace, and those who trust the Lord are kept within the environment of His protective care; they are looked after by the one who destroys all that opposes shalom. So what sort of negative thinking do we need to get rid of?  Do we need help to see ourselves as He sees us? Have we allowed ourselves to become hopeless, and feel helpless when there is so much offered to us by our heavenly Father? No matter the storms we have gone through we can know great security and blessing in Him.

On one occasion Jesus was asleep in a boat, whilst the disciples weathered the storm (Matthew 8:24f). He was at rest, yet they were terrified. Jesus rebuked the storm and they were then able to rest, yet again, within the protective care of one who will one day fully restore shalom to his world.. May we all know more of this shalom-peace, here and now, because it is ours for the taking through His gracious provision.

“History is not our story – it is not the story of the progress of humankind. Rather, history is the narrative of God at work bringing creation to a divinely intended goal. And the unity of history lies ultimately in the activity of the one God.”                                                                     Dr S.J. Grenz in, ‘Created For Community’ p 257.

 “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.  Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal.”                                                                                             Isaiah 26:3-4

“God is not a God of disorder, but of peace.”

1 Cor 14:33

Be encouraged.

Written and Produced by Jem Trehern M.A.