Peacemaking is not our natural tendency. It has nothing to do with having an easy-going attitude, appeasing people at opposite ends of a conflict, maintaining the status quo, or keeping the peace regardless of the cost.
Our culture promotes and fosters competition, argumentation, and tension. Peacemakers show others how to cooperate rather than compete, how to seek solutions rather than argument, and how to ease tension rather than creating it. Their active concern is for broken things to be “set at one” again.
Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, secured peace for us by the blood of His cross, which gives us the capacity to seek and secure peace for ourselves and others. This new and radical way of thinking puts everything into a kingdom/gospel context. We begin to dispense peace wherever we are by being selfless, loving, and approachable. We go out of our way to look for a means to craft, produce, and maintain conditions for reconciliation and/or restoration. Our real identity in Christ begins to emerge. Our family likeness becomes recognizable. “Behold what manner of love that has been granted to us, transforming us into the sons and daughters of God!”