Peace With Others

Once we have embraced Christ as our true peace with God, we are in a position to really be at peace with others.  The Bible tells us that as far as it depends on us, we are to live at peace with all.  Granted, "it takes two to tango", and there are some people who will refuse to live in peace.  There are some who will find the very Gospel that we proclaim to be offensive and will therefore hate us as a result.  While we must do our best to live in peace and love, we are not responsible for people's responses toward us.  

May I also say that this is, by no means, meant to be a treatise on how to live at peace with others!  Whole books have been written about that!  This post will merely highlight one great way to pursue peace with others: love.

True love is not just about having good vibes for someone or an attraction to them.  It's not about being generically "nice" to people.  1 Corinthians 13 describes what love is and isn't.  If we could truly put this definition into practice with those around us, we would be going a long way towards living at peace with others.  

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
 

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.