We Keep Asking for Peace…

There are times we wonder why our prayers are not answered. Have you considered that you may perhaps be praying against the will of God? While we continue to look for our own personal utopia, that may not be the plan of God:

⁵⁰ But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! ⁵¹ Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. ⁵² From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. Luke 12: 50-53 (NIV)

It looks like in this passage that while we may feel that praying for peace is the right thing, Jesus has already told us He did not come to bring peace on earth, but division. Jesus did not come to bring a status quo, He came to challenge the status quo! He did not come so everyone could gather around and sing Kumbaye; rather He came to raise up a war cry against the work of satan, even if it means splitting a family right in half!

God does not want us to settle for a compromised peace. He wants us to wage war until their is a decisive victory in His Name. Sadly, much of the church has decided that division of the gospel is in order, and within these divisions each side feels that they are right. What is the remedy for this?

We do have a prototype. When the Jewish legalists were raising an uproar about Gentile believers needing to be circumcised to be a true believer of Yeshua, the leadership of the church went into prayer for the Lord to speak. He spoke indeed:

To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.

²⁴ We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. ²⁵ So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— ²⁶ men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁷ Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. ²⁸ It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: ²⁹ You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell. Acts 15:23-229 (NIV)

We need to call some Jerusalem councils today, don’t you think?

Maria