Deceitful Hearts

Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

      When you hear the word peacemaker what do you picture? Someone that never takes a stand? Perhaps someone that just goes along with the crowd in order not to cause waves? This is surely not what Jesus had in mind.

      Ezekiel 13:9-10 tells us “My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of my people or be listed in the records of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD. "'Because they lead my people astray, saying, "Peace," when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash,”

     There are times when it is necessary to speak unpopular things. People will get mad and what culminates can certainly not be called peace. Anyone that has stood before an angry crowd and told them the unpopular truth knows this to be true. The Peacemaker doesn’t just whitewash the problem, putting off until another day the painful task of addressing the “cracks in the wall”. It takes courage to stand and deliver when the message is not one that will be accepted well. A peacemaker must be honest. There is no real peace unless it is built on truth.

      A marriage must be built on honesty. Anyone that has been married past the honeymoon knows that the bed of roses can quickly become thorny. There will be disagreements but there can still be peace in the home. In order to navigate the dangerous shores of those disagreements both husband and wife must be completely honest. Yes, it will hurt. Yes, it will be hard. But once the foundations of dishonesty are laid all that is built on them will be unstable. Everyday will be filled with the trepidation of those untruths until the weight of the relationship crashes around the lies. Honesty is not just the best policy it is the only foundation upon which we can build lasting peace.

      I have been known to use the phrase “hogwash” a little too much. (My wife bought me a t-shirt displaying a pig taking a bath that says Hogwash on it.) Of course, the phrase means to try and clean up something that is inherently dirty. No matter how many times you give a hog a bath it will run right back to the mud hole and lay down. Trying to find peace in that situation will never work. For example governments have tried to broker a peace in the Middle East for hundreds of years without success. If you look past all the claims made, you will find a cacophony of lies told by both sides. Lies that have been told so often that they are simply accepted as the “way it is”. There will never be any peace until the truth can prevail. Presidents and diplomats that try to whitewash these cracks in the wall will never bring lasting peace. Soon the rain comes and washes away the “fix’ revealing the broken foundation.

      The only way to truly find peace is to make a change. The fleshly heart is deceitfully wicked and will never be able to know peace. Only Jesus can give us a new heart. He can expose the lies that we have built our lives upon and tear them down, replacing them with truth because He is Truth. Build your life on Him, build your marriage on Him, build your relationships on Him and experience real, lasting peace.