Peace or Payback?

If you take some time to sort through 1 Peter 3, you'll see that believers are to be a source of blessing.  Exactly what blessing means includes truth, btw.  

Blessing is here contrasted with common behavior: retribution.  This is the big word for "payback" (yes, we all know "payback is H#77", so don't even think about saying that out loud).  Blessing is clearly contrasted, and is in fact opposed by or even defeated by payback.  

If Christians simply give insult for insult, evil for evil, we are defeating the purpose for which we are called by God.  We are going to inherit blessings of the heavenly kind, the unimaginable kind, and so we are to be the source from which others are blessed. Verse 13 reminds us that we have no need to fear harm if we are staying in the right.  

This is just not our regular instinct.  I want to be the sheriff, the judge, jury and, well...you know.  But this ain't my calling, is it?  Jesus didn't save us so we could get even.

SO- you gotta love the application of Psalm 34:11ff in verses 10-12.  Who thinks of "people who want to live, love, and be happy" as a Biblical idea?  The behavior will follow the calling of God to salvation.  Any retribution belongs to the One who calls.

What is for us is to be harmonious, which I hope means cooperative, sympathetic, which helps us pray like crazy, brotherly, including acceptance in the big family of God, kindhearted, including to cruel people we find unattractive, and humble in spirit, that is, satisfied with God and His work in us.  

The next time someone steps on your cornflakes, will you choose peace or payback? If you were ever attacked for being a Christian, would you be able to explain why you're giving a blessing?

"Let him turn away from evil and do good; Let him seek peace and pursue it."

 

Peace of God in Philippians 4:7

What we are after is "the peace of God that is far beyond/above the known."  How do you like that translation? I mean unknown to us.  It is "far beyond all comprehension" or "knowledge" or "logic."  So see then we can experience it, but we will not ever understand it.  I venture then it is supernatural, or mystical (!).  And such an experience over time has a predictable result.  "...will protect your hearts and your minds IN Christ Jesus."  We can think of this as "keeping us within the sphere of Christ Jesus' power" or more simply "Christ Jesus will be the means of soul-protection via the peace of God."  So without a doubt what we are after is spiritual.  On this day when the perpetual adolescents in our media are showing video of children being run over by trains (uninjured though they were), we need "soul protection" more than ever.  My prayer is that I would be always pursuing that peace of God through the commands of Philippians 4:4-6!