Jesus is viewed by most people in the religious community to be a very nice person, in my experience.  Today, He is viewed as being all about love and peace and acceptance.  And make no mistake about it, Jesus is all about love.  He is God(John 1:1, 14), and He loves us(I John 4:11), so He is all about love.  Jesus is also about peace(bringing peace – John 14:27).  However, Jesus’ level of acceptance is far less than most people think.  Let’s look at some of what Jesus says about peace.

Be At Peace

What is commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount(Matt. 5-7) is basically an outline of what someone who is a disciple of Jesus looks like.  It is clearly not all-encompassing, as it speaks in many generalities, but it is extremely helpful.  Jesus describes how people should be living their lives, regarding actions, inactions, even thoughts, etc.   

One point Jesus makes with regard to how people need to live their lives has to do with peace.  In Matt. 5:23-24, Jesus states that if you go to worship God(He refers to how a Jew would worship God at the Temple in Jerusalem under the Law of Moses) and realize that someone has something against you(you are not living at peace with someone), you should leave the altar(act of worship) and find that person.  You need to make peace with that person, then go back and continue your worship of God.  Jesus is effectively stating that your relationship with God is not exclusive of your relationship with other people.  You can’t be antagonistic with other people and have a wonderful relationship with God.  This does not mean that no one can be upset with you.   Jesus made a lot of people upset(Matt. 12:14).  The apostles made a lot of people upset when they preached Jesus(Acts 4-5).   What I am referring to is something you did that was wrong(typically it would be sinning) toward another person.

Not At Peace

Jesus did not preach peace above all else among people.  Instead, He let His followers know that there would be times when they would not be at peace with others, sometimes even family.  In Luke 12:51-53, Jesus says that He did not come to bring peace, but He came to bring division.  This sounds very un-Jesus-like, but look at the point He was actually making.  He stated that His teachings would cause divisions in family.  If one people followed His teachings and another family member did not follow Jesus’ teachings, those two family members would be at odds.  There would be division between them.

This can be very stressful.  In general, people want to be at peace with family members.  This can cause people to compromise in following what Jesus teaches.  But Jesus wants people to realize that IF there is a division between family members due to one person following Jesus and another person not following Jesus, Jesus wants to make sure that you are choosing Him.  You are doing what Jesus teaches even if it means creating division with family members.  Situations like this are NOT fun, but how we deal with these types of situations demonstrate who we think is more important to us.  Is it Jeus, or is it a family member?  If we follow Jesus, we risk divisiveness with family.  If we follow family(over Jesus), we bring about division between ourselves and Jesus.

It would be really easy to ask why Jesus won’t just let us do whatever needs to be done to retain peace with family, and then we will follow Jesus regarding everything else.  However, one thing that becomes very obvious is that Jesus requires us to follow Him, regardless of anything or anyone else.  In Matt. 7:26-27, Jesus makes the point that if we do not do what He tells us, our lives will be failures.  If we are not following what He says(everything He says), we simply are not following Him.

It is important to note that there is no wiggle room in following Jesus.  Either you are following Him(in all things) or you are not following Him.  You could be doing 99% of what He says to do, but doing 99% is not doing what He says.  He did not say to just do some of what He said or most of what He said.  It’s an all-or-nothing situation.  Does Jesus sound demanding?  Yes!  He is God, and as God, He has the right to demand whatever He wants.  And it  is also important to remember that Jesus is not trying to make our lives more difficult.  He is trying to make them godly.  He wants us to be like Him.  He knows what is best for us.  We do not, even though we think we do.  In the end, we have to put our faith and trust in Him.  So let’s do that.