Make Your Enemies At Peace With You - Make Your Ways Please The Lord

Proverbs 16:7 When a mans ways please the Lord, He makes his enemies to be at peace with him.

This past week has seen the loss of two special people to this world, England’s Princess Diana and Mother Theresa. Both women championed the cause of the poor and the unwanted. However Mother Theresa’s memory stands out in my mind as someone whose life was more substantive. She was an icon of love and grace to me. Her death has caused me to do some soul searching.

I noticed the world hasn’t responded to her death with the same manner as Diana’s. That wasn’t too surprising though. I believe God called her home at this time for a reason. It is almost as if He purposed to bring her home quietly as the world looked to Diana. Saint’s don’t need a lot of notoriety in this world. Yet her death is getting some world attention. Why, I asked? In a world that seeks to elevate its own and does all it can to bash Christianity I was perplexed as to why this woman is respected. Why is it that Hollywood and the Media bash movements of God such as Promise Keepers? It seems that anyone or any groups that follow Biblical mandates, champions family values, or is pro-life are open game for them. We are labeled as non-tolerant. We are called gay bashers. The world sees us as unloving toward our fellow man unless they fit into our pre-determined mold. Yet despite her open confession of doing all for Jesus and being unapologetically pro-life, they world respected her. Why?

God brought the scripture Proverbs 16:7 to my mind. I realized there was something different about her Christian faith. Then, I thought of Billy Graham. He, like Mother Theresa is respected. The only bashing of those two people I ever heard was in Christian circles, never outside the Church. These two walked the talk. Their entire Christian life is marked with service to God, service to God, and then service to God. The world does not elevate them but at least they leave them alone. God made their enemies to be at peace with them. So it was with Jesus. His enemies (the Romans for the Jews) were at peace with him. They found no fault with him. He was only despised in religious circles.

When our ways please the Lord, He will cause our enemies to be at peace with us. Perhaps we should seek God by being more committed to humility and serving rather than personal comfort and self-gratification. Maybe we should seek the Lord by meeting others needs with something substantive rather than just well wishes. Perhaps we should seek to show love to those we don’t particularly like to be around or that are different from our mold. Maybe we would find God by volunteering some of our time to serve the indigent of society instead of seeking more free time or retirement time. Perhaps our ways would please God if we chose to have a passion for the lost as Billy Graham has. Perhaps we need to spend a lot more time serving rather than accumulating knowledge or boasting of the superiority of our theological positions. When our faith lives up to the level of commitment to Jesus and the personal character of Mother Theresa or Billy Graham, God too will make our enemies to be at peace with us. We will never be held in esteem by the world, but at least we can be at peace with them.

Lord, please show me how I can serve others with the same love of Jesus that Mother Theresa exhibited. Please, also build a burning passion in my heart for the lost like you have given Billy Graham. Then I ask you to make my enemies to be at peace with me.

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