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Here's a nice message to help you with that finding peace Jordan:
A Peace That Lasts March 21, 2003
Dr. Wil Willemon shared this story at Annual Conference a few years ago. It was 1979 he was pastoring a church at the time and having a conversation with and elderly woman from the congregation. She told him that she had an Iranian exchange student staying with her. Now this was during the Iranian revolution so he asked what the young man felt about the anti-American sentiment. She said, “Oh he thinks it’s just great, he supports it as much as he can.” This really intrigued the pastor who then commented, “That’s amazing! How do you deal with the situation.” She replied, “Because I’m Christian dern it, you think it’s easy!” Sometimes being Christian means we are compelled to deal with difficult, world situations. Jeremiah agonizes over war in his prophetic book, “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and great weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” 31:15. We are gathered this morning to celebrate God and to worship in the name of Jesus Christ, and yet a pall hangs over our thoughts. We cannot escape thoughts of conflict, strife and war. We gaze out on a world bitterly divided over the path to peace. Too many times, I have been asked, even as I have asked God myself, “Is war ever a good thing?” It is a question the universal church has struggled with at least since the time of Augustine in the fifth century. I for one am convinced that while war may sometimes be necessary, it can never be a just or good thing. In fact, the only good part of war is its end. War is a part of the fallen-ness, the sinfulness of humanity. War rejects God’s ultimate plan for humanity, and yet we as Christians often find ourselves drawn in to global struggles. (To suggest that war can be a good or just way of resolving conflict risks turning away from other approaches to resolution before giving adequate effort to other means of conflict resolution. To say that war is good or just as conflict resolution is to risk always surrendering to the quick impulse that negates relationship and community. The word “necessity” does not carry with it the same positive connotations that “good” or “just” do.) In Matthew 24:6-8, Jesus warned that “there will be wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be earthquakes in various places; all this is but the beginning of birthpangs.” Is that all we are to do then? Should Christians participate in the wars that go on? Should we participation in demonstrations for or against war? Or should we sit passively on the sidelines in the face of genocide? In the face of humanity’s most monstrous behavior, in the face of the collapse of our hopes and dreams for peace, we are forced to ask ourselves… Where is God in the midst of these scary times? I mean, when we are scared about the terrorist response, when our children, our parents, our friends are in harm’s way, where is God? The answer of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that God still draws near. The witness of the Old Testament, and especially in the Psalms and the Prophets, is that God is still present even in the most fractious places of our lives. It is in the broken-ness of the human condition that God’s grace restores balance. War happens, not because God has abandoned us, but rather, war happens because humanity abandons the core of the Christian message, namely, that relationship with God and with humanity is the only law. Every other law hinges on love of God and neighbor, and war is the greatest separation, the greatest attempt at negation of God’s law, but in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit, the ultimate war has already been fought and Jesus, crucified, dead and buried arose from that struggle with the grave as Christ the Victor. God values human life so much that God came to earth faced every temptation, ache, pain, fear and whatever else you have gone through, because God loves you to much to be separated from you. But that same expression of love is held out to our enemies, God invites you as Christians to receive that love, but also to share that love, even with enemies. How on earth can we live that? What is the faithful, Christian response to war? The beatitudes are found in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the single greatest statement of Christian ethics ever written. For myself, I am convinced that the Christian response to war is a response that takes before, during and after war. I am convinced that Jesus recognized war will happen, as we said earlier in Matthew 24, but in Matthew 5:9, Jesus also said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” And, in Matthew 5:43-45 Jesus said, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven…” The Christian response to war must begin with the struggle to hold the world to the promise made after so many wars…”Never again!” This is a vocation for which the church is uniquely equipped, because as Christians we know the Prince and Author of Peace. For this task, it is not of primary importance that we choose sides in the activism for or against the present war, but it is of paramount importance, even absolute necessity, for the body of Christ to ask loudly, to profoundly proclaim the questions that love compels us to: How did we get to this point? What issues bring us to disconnect? What is the major point of misunderstanding between our cultures? What further issues brought us to conflict and what must happen to resolve them? How do we prevent this conflict from recurring? How do we restore relationship between our cultures? First in looking at Matthew 5:9, it is important to understand what peace and peacemaker mean. The Hebrew word for peace, “shalom,” means “everything that makes for a person’s highest good.” In the present time, we tend to define peace negatively as “the absence of strife,” but this is not what Jesus meant in saying this. Let’s go back to that verse now, “Blessed are those who try to do everything that makes for the highest good between people, for they will be called children of God.” Or perhaps, “Blessed are those who try to make this world a better place to live in.” Yet another way of reading it might be, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they are doing a God-like work.” Further, the Hebrew means, “Blessed are they who work for right relationships between people, for they are doing a God-like work.” I mention these ways of reading the verse, not because there are different understandings about what the verse says, rather, because any way it is understood, it teaches that “peace” as Jesus uses the word is not only an absence of some struggle, peace is not only passive. Peace not only means an absence of trouble, it also means enjoyment of all good. When Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers…” He was speaking in a much richer sense than modern English captures. Peace is not merely the absence of war, peace is the embodiment of every good thing for and in all people. And that is what we Christians are called to become. We are to become the glue that binds humanity together, when it seems most at risk of flying apart. How can we accomplish that?!??! One of my most influential authors, Henri Nouwen, offers answer to the question. First and foremost, Christians have got to cultivate a life of rich, deep prayer. Peacemaking requires a deep, penetrating life of prayer. Indeed, prayer- or living in the presence of God- is the most radical expression of peace any person can experience or imagine. Prayer shapes our lives and our hearts to meet the circumstances of the world. Prayer is peacemaking and not simply preparation before, support during and thanksgiving after struggle. In prayer, we undo the fear of death and therefore the basis of all human destruction. Prayer enables us to move beyond the judgmentalism and self- righteousness to speak not from anger and fear, but from love. Peacemaking that is based in fear or anger is not far enough removed from war-mongering. True peacemaking is based in love…remember Jesus’ words from Matthew 5, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” What our enemy most needs is not anger, hatred, rejection, resentment or disdain, for that only gives them power and control over you, and they have enough of these destructive things in their lives. Instead, your enemy needs love, in particular that love of God in Jesus Christ, which is at work to transform the world even now. Scripture is another place that this experience of God’s love can take root in our lives. Only when rooted in the Word of God are we able to see the march to peace. Throughout the Biblical witness there are wars, but there is also powerful testimony to God’s commitment to peace. God’s love transforms. God’s love is revealed most powerfully in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as revealed to us in scripture. What a story of reconciliation! What a story of peace! What a story of love in the face of rejection, hate and sin! It is only this deep-rooted experience of God’s love that can overcome the bitterness of war. If the peacemaker can’t experience, or won’t experience, this all-giving love of God then the peacemaker will become ravaged by the same anger, violence and resentment that leads to war. Peacemaking is also a challenge to individualism. Those who strive to make peace, to do this mighty work of God, will find themselves getting into the middle of fractious, divisive, places of human experience. For the Christian, whichever side we take, is less important than the peace we strive to make, the peace we strive to build. Peacemaking involves those who recognize that salvation is not an individual experience alone. Salvation involves the community as well. To cut one’s self off from community, even in the midst of conflict, is to cut one’s self off from God. The place for Christians to be is less to the right or the left, less on our side or theirs, than in the midst working to heal the breach in human fellowship. Our God is a God of relationship, radical, loving relationship. The call to follow God is a call to relationship and relationship begins with peace, is strengthened by peace, and when peace continues, God’s bond of love grows. The Christian response to war must be to work for peace, but it must be a pro-active peace, a Godly peace that says “NO” to the violent dictators, must also say “NO” to the greedy corporations that steal pension funds, “NO” to the hopelessness of hunger, sickness, poverty, loneliness and homelessness. The Christian response to war must be to work for peace in prayer, fasting and scripture, but also pre-emptively strike against the nullification of the voice of the weak by becoming the voice of the weak. The Christian response to war must involve action to bring all of the people of the world, people with diverse cultures, diverse tongues, diverse traditions, diverse appearances, diverse beliefs, diverse dreams and all other expressions of diversity God has blessed us with, into right relationship with each other. Can we, as Christians, do this? Strive for this? Pray for this? The challenge lies before us, so painful, so dramatic, that it is on television, and beaming through space for all to see. The answer is important, especially for we who follow in the footsteps of Christ. As Isaiah could say even 2700 years ago, “And his name shall be called wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and now especially, the Prince of peace.” We cannot follow Christ and not be led into the fractious places of humanity, for Jesus is our peace! Let us go to our God in prayer!
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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This is like watching a train wreck. You guys don't stand a chance at getting under Griff's skin, if that is your intent. He has the blood pressure of a dead man. Suggest you try a different course.
If you don't like his posts, don't read them. We all are fre to post what we want here.
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"you CAN do it alone, griff.. ask me for guidance...i will help you find inner peace.. i know that you are lost,alone, searching... its ok..let yourself accept what IS..."
I did Jordan. I accepted Christ who was and is and will be. You will too one day, if you seek true enlightenment.
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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quote:Originally posted by Griffon: i think that come under the category of spamming...
please explain
well, it's just a long, long cut-n-post... and it's not your work or is it? i see it's dated.. we asa grioup here really prefer that you try to make it your own.. i know, i know, i've posted you a lot of cut-n-paste, but it was going to a specific point of providing proof,or something close to proof anyway..
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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You know Jordan, the funny thing is that your fascination with religion, your fear of it, tells me, God's prevenient grace is at work on you. You will be saved one day. Not by me but by God who is our Savior. Keep searching. In the meantime, come back when you mature a little. That edge in you causing you to retreat into your mantra is convicting grace. Embrace it, repent and find out what freedom is really like.
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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"well, it's just a long, long cut-n-post... and it's not your work or is it? i see it's dated.. we asa grioup here really prefer that you try to make it your own.. i know, i know, i've posted you a lot of cut-n-paste, but it was going to a specific point of providing proof,or something close to proof anyway.."
This is my own work from my infancy in preaching.
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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"ever read anything by the Baba of silence??"
Actually yes, I have read, and practice silence and solitude. But more to the point: Enlightenment is found in relationship, not in simple solitude and introspection. You cannot achieve true enlightenment apart from relationship. This is where the Guatama Buddha was wrong. Lao Tsu was closer but still not accepting a personal edge to relationality.
The peace within only comes from Christ. However, if you accept the teachings you espouse, then you lack only that relationality to be free.
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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His teachings appeal to a self-indulgent culture that believes they can find spirituality in themselves. It's a lie. Baba actually taught some nice truisms, but everything was copied from other religions. I do not wish to tread on your fith, but the truth is not there fully.
However, every religion has a piece of the truth through God's prevenient grace.
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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No I read that book, child. The compendium is an e-collection of quotes from his writing, is it not?
"again,not very christianlike...you are a fraud"
No I am not, and I suspect having read the prattle you are refering to that Baba wouldn't approve of you calling me a liar either. So your practices seem a little off, discontinuity from where you seek to be. But then Baba took his musings from wherever he could find truth.
Look Jordan, Baba is leading you in a different path than I will follow. Enlightenment for me is not down that road. If it helps you cope, that's great and we can argue about it all you want, but we aren't converting each other. The Gospel is the truth, Baba has part of that truth.
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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