Dave Dishman

No doubt we live in a violent world. While my life remains peaceful, only a glance at the news reveals warfare, crime and families fighting with fists and knives. Some deep tendency in human nature leads to savage behaviors.

King David lived in a similar world. He wrote of his situation, Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!

David rose to power through violent circumstances. Defeating Goliath on the battlefield launched his career, and he went on to lead men in multiple conflicts. Small wonder that many of these same warriors found it difficult to revert to quiet gentility when the fighting stopped. David wrote of a peace that he found difficult to grasp.

Jesus taught blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Like David discovered, peacemakers are hard to find. Let’s pray for those who seek peace, and for the blunting of those who love violence. While peace is elusive, it’s not out of the question. Lord, bless the peacemakers, and bring more of them into our lives and our world.

Psalm 120 & Matthew 5:9

Photo by Aaron Burden

I have friends who cannot help but speak up about any topic whatsoever. I’m sure you do as well. We all know people who bring a cavalcade of words. In the best circumstances, they tend to lubricate social situations and pull people out of their shells, and those who learn to harness their talkativeness develop into excellent communicators.

Peter and John refused to harness their talkativeness. They shook Jerusalem as they preached about the resurrected Jesus, and healed a well-known man crippled for over 40 years. The ruling council, the same men who crucified Jesus, called them in for a scolding, warning them to not speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

John and Peter responded: Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.

The apostles refused the muzzle. The miracle of Jesus overwhelmed earthly authority. Thank God for their lack of conformity. Jesus-followers down through history know of God’s love due to their civil disobedience.

You and I should refuse the muzzle as well. Speak the message of hope. Tell others what God has done in your life. Blurt out the good news of Jesus. You don’t need to be an excellent communicator, just earnest in your desire for people to find their way to the Lord. Talk about Jesus—the world needs him desperately.

Acts 4:18-20

Photo by Chris Dixon

The book of Judges describes a society spinning out of control. What starts with a people gradually leaving the God who delivered them from bondage ends in a bloody civil war. Murder, mayhem and a general disregard for the Lord’s ways mark the devolution of Israel over the roughly 350 years chronicled in these accounts.

One phrase captures the spirit of the age: In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

In many ways this describes our landscape today. Everyone doing what’s right in their own eyes leads to chaos. It shows up in displays of overt sexuality, in people voluntarily sequestered behind closed doors living life through their screens, in family members cancelling one another as toxic, in the proliferation of selfies, in parents allowing their little girls to become boys and their little boys to become girls. I could go on.

This phrase everyone did what was right in his own eyes is a curse. Societal standards provide necessary guardrails. The more we move from our Judeo-Christian roots the more we suffer. Pray for the reverse. There’s a sense among young people today that something is missing. They are searching, and many are finding their way to the church, to the transcendent, to God. Pray for men and women to come to faith in Christ. Pray for the shift from doing what’s right on our own eyes to doing what’s right in the Lord’s eyes.

Judges 21:25

Photo by Andrea De Santis

After the resurrection Jesus appeared in the flesh to his disciples and spoke about the kingdom of God. Many people saw him and heard from him, even appearing to more than five hundred people at once.

But one encounter laid the groundwork for his disciples and all who followed after. In front of a group numbering around two dozen, Jesus responded to a question about the restoration of Israel. The disciples remained focused locally, but Jesus raised their eyes to the world.

He told them, It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

More of a promise than a command, Jesus told of the coming Holy Spirit and the subsequent spread of his message. The results? A few dozen believers in Jerusalem has now grown to billions all over the world. What launched then is still going strong, a two thousand year old enterprise founded by the words of a man returned from the dead.

Who wouldn’t want to hear that story?

Acts 1:6-8

Photo by John Cafazza