peacemakers

God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. Matthew 5:9 NLT

Peacemakers are not peacekeepers. There is a difference. A peacekeepers tries to keep things as they are, and prevent war, fights or eruptions.  It takes a lot of energy. A peacemaker sometimes disrupts the status quo to cleanse a bad situation.  They will confront sin.

Peacekeepers have to deal with sinful people behaving badly, and trying to cap bad behaviour. They are not able to confront. Often they behave like enablers. They end up being abused.

Peacemakers go deeper, and deal with the problem by speaking to the cause of the behaviour. I had to do this with my father.  I was 3 at the time. My dad would drink and then behave badly. I wanted to know why. I gently, but firmly confronted him. I discovered he was offended. We dealt with the offense, and he began to change for the better. This solved the problem much better than avoiding confrontation. A part of the problem was my dad believed my husband and I had set our young son against him because our son told him he did not love Jesus because he swore, in part he was right. Our son was 4 at the time,  fuelled by out attempts to teach godly behaviour,  and explain why people outside our home swore. He was a zealot as a youngster, and took on everybody. I explained this to my dad, and with my mother's insistence he dropped the matter, and moved on.

Without the confrontation our dad would have died in his offense. As it was he died at peace with the Lord. We must give people the truth in love, and give them peace with the Lord. Amen!