A CALL TO ACTION (PART 8)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Search for peace, and work to maintain it.

1 Peter 3:11b NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today, we have reached the end of this series from 1 Peter, chapter 3, titled “A Call To Action”. Within the first seven of these messages, we have found the Lord commanding Christian believers to be:

1. United and of one mind.

2. Sympathetic toward one another.

3. Loving each other as one would a brother or sister.

4. Tenderhearted.

5. Humble.

6. Granting blessing instead of revenge.

7. Controlling our words so to enjoy life.

As we wrap things up for today, we find an exhortation to seek and sustain peace. Look at these words found in the second half of verse 11:

Search for peace, and work to maintain it.

You know, there’s a large population of people in our world who get up every day with a mission to look for trouble and then gladly participate when they find it. Conflict and strife are their favorite participation sports and there’s plenty of willing players in the game, others who are always looking to mix things up at every chance they get.

As we see in our scripture verse for today, the Lord calls His people to act in a completely opposite way, one that demands Christians to search for peace and then strive to maintain it once it is found.

Through this, we get a real sense of how the Lord expects the matter of peace to not be temporary or intermittent. Rather, He requires that believers will preserve and continue to encourage and practice peace at all times.

How can Christians make sure this happens?

By ensuring that they emulate Jesus and be Christ-like, modeling the behavior of the One who was the Prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6).

All those who have placed their belief in Jesus have received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and it’s this indwelling that produces fruit, behavior that mimics Jesus and is pleasing in the sight of God. Of course, one of those produced fruits is none other than peace (Galatians 5:22-23).

Christians are to live as Jesus did and Jesus perfectly showed the world what true peace looks like. Our final call to action is to seek out and then continually exercise the peace that only comes from Him, a peace that will counter and ultimately overcome the efforts of those who seek to disrupt.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.