CREDIT: The Sporting News
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I’m a bit of a sports fan. Often, my teams try to get better by adding players to the roster. However, sometimes they try “addition by subtraction.” When a player, regardless of how good they are, doesn’t fit in, the team gets better by subtracting them. By improving team chemistry, the team adds by subtraction.
Jesus has many nicknames, including “Prince of Peace.” It’s odd to hear Him say, “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” (Luke 12:51) Then He describes whole families divided against each other - parents and kids, kids-in-law and parents-in-law. How can a “Prince of Peace” cause so much division? Well, it’s a little like “addition by subtraction.”
For many, peace is a lack of conflict. If you’re not fighting, you’re at peace. To many this often looks like living as one wants, satisfying their own needs and desires - and others letting them do so. “I’m not going to make waves. So long as nobody gets hurt, that’s fine.” Even followers of Jesus, Christians, don’t want to make waves so they let others do things counter to God’s word without lovingly calling them to repentance for their sin - all in the name of “peace” … a lack of conflict.
Unfortunately, when “peace” between people exists in this way, peace between God and man doesn’t. Sin is conflict between us and God as we disobey His will for us. In calling for division, Jesus calls on us to call sin what it is - SIN! Even if it creates division in the world’s eyes. He desires people to know their sin and then repent of it to receive God’s forgiveness - the peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace that leads to eternal life in the kingdom of God. It's only by dividing people against their sinful nature and the world’s sin-filled ways - even if causes conflict this side of heaven - that true peace, unity in Christ, is possible. Peace by division.
In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Jim