Peace of Christ
Would they win by arguing? Never, a small-town leader warned residents in Adirondack Park, where a pitched battle between environmentalists and small-business owners ignited the “Adirondack Wars.” The name described their fight whether to save the area’s pristine wilderness in Upstate New York or develop it.
“Go back wherever you came from!” a local leader had shouted at an environmentalist. But soon a new message emerged: “Don’t yell at each other. Try to talk to each other.” A Common Ground Alliance was formed to build bridges between warring factions. Civic dialogue led to progress—with nearly a million acres of wild land protected even as Adirondack towns grew more prosperous than they’d been in twenty years.
Peaceful coexistence is a start, but Paul taught something even better. To the new believers in Colossae, he said, “Rid yourselves of . . . anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips” (Colossians 3:8). Paul urged them to exchange their old ways for a new nature in Christ: “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience,” he wrote (v. 12).
The invitation is offered today to all believers: surrender our old, cantankerous lives to new life in Christ. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace” (v. 15). Then, in our peace, the world will see Jesus.
.By Patricia Raybon-Bread Ministries
Colossians 3:8-17 (NIV)
8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
