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| The Wall - a silent, public prayer meeting to end racism. www.civilrighteousness.org |
A few years ago, I was leading worship during a pastors’ prayer luncheon for Jesus Loves Kzoo (an 11+ year old evangelistic unity movement in our region). As I was sitting at the grand piano, I saw an internal vision of my husband and I laying down on our faces, with our arms outstretched in front of us and our legs stretched behind us. I saw our region’s spiritual topography laid out around us. Our hands were touching one group of people and our feet were touching another. In the vision, I saw people walking over our backs from one people group or church to another. We had become human bridges that connected ethnicities, people groups, and denominations. In the vision I saw others laying prostrate to serve in the same way.
In that moment I had a revelation of God’s beautiful strategy of peacemaking. He uses His children to serve as peacemakers, as bridge builders. However, it required us to go low….really low…..so low that it would feel like people were walking all over us. Talk about humbling! But if we could lay our lives down so that His Bride could be unified, then the world would acknowledge that the Father sent Jesus into the world. According to John 17:23, our stunning, supernatural unity would become a sign and a wonder that reveals Jesus as the Son of God.
Jesus Himself is a powerful model for living as a peacemaker: He stretched out his arms and his legs on a wooden cross to become the ultimate human bridge, the ultimate intercessor, connecting a dying, lost, and, corrupted humanity with a loving Father.
Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9
This word “sons” is the Greek word “huios” [υἱοὶ] , meaning a mature son. This is the son that could conduct business as his father in the marketplace. It was the son who can wear the family signet ring with authority. When the Father announced Jesus at the Jordan River, He said, “This is my son (huios), whom I love, with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) Peacemaking is what mature sons do. They destroy chaos and disunity with their peace. According to one definition at HELPS-Word Studies, a peacemaker “bravely declares God's terms which makes someone whole.” A peacemaker chooses to view someone through the lens of imago dei, one created in the image of God.
How do we access this peace? We learn in Galatians 4 that peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. In essence, we cannot release what we have not grown. King David the psalmist declares that we thrive as fruit-bearing trees when we daily meditate upon His Word. Peace is grown from a life rooted in His love, daily meditating on His Word (Ephesians 3, Psalm 1).
In an age where people are often blinded with offense, division, and rage, it is this vision of serving as a peacemaker that continues to grip me. Let’s step into our calling as mature sons of God. Let's go low. Let’s be the bridge.
Civil Righteousness Pt. 3
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