a future for a person of peace

Mark the blameless and behold the upright,

for there is a future for the man of peace.

Psalm 37:37

This is a promise for all who will cling to the gospel and seek to follow Jesus. I cannot be blameless in my own efforts. I fight sin in my motivations, attitudes, and my wrong choices every.... single.... day. I have to do battle with selfish thinking constantly. I find myself regularly enticed by the lust of the body, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I can only be blameless in the Perfect Life of Christ. His righteousness, applied to me, must live in me for any sort of upright life to be known. The gospel is my only hope.

When I cling to Jesus and let His Word and Spirit work in me, I can see my focus shift from self to loving others. I can only love them well as Jesus loves them through me. But the reconciliation to God I know through the cross compels me to seek peace with others and to help others seek peace. And then the gospel as the message of reconciliation gives me the ministry of reconciliation (see 2 Corinthians 5:18-21) so that through Jesus, as I commit to living and proclaiming the gospel in word and in deed, I can be a person of peace.

And there is a joyful future promised to such a person of peace. Those who are made a new creation in Christ live in that new creation, even as the world is still suffering under sin’s curse. Little islands of hope emerge in Christian lives as people who are at peace, who are forgiven, who can be seen as holy because Christ’s righteousness is applied to them, begin to share that bright hope in the world.

Jesus,

I am living for the future that You promise for a person of peace because You are my Prince of peace. Help me to make Your peace known in the gospel. I want to be an island of bright hope in an ocean of darkness.

Amen