Depart from evil and do good; seek, inquire for, and crave peace and pursue (go after) it! Psalms 34:14 (AMPC)
LMost of us desire peace and even the hostile and contentious claim they want peace. Many even start and carry on wars in the name of peace!Peace belongs to every one of us on earth because that’s what God desires and has made available to us in Jesus Christ. But not everyone is living in peace, and so few are experiencing it all the time.Now it’s very possible to live in peace at all times in every situation.Yet peace doesn’t just fall on us like ripe fruit from a tree. We cannot just sit around and hope for peace to come around to our place. We have to aggressively seek and pursue peace. Thankfully the Scripture has told us how to do it. We seek peace by departing from evil and doing good. There’s no peace where there’s evil. Isaiah 57:20-21 (AMPC) But the wicked are like the troubled sea, for it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. The number one and most effective way we depart from evil and do good is by taming and controlling our tongue and lips.Psalms 34:13 (AMPC) Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.Seek and pursue peace by refraining from speaking what kicks out and keeps out peace.Offences, quarrels, strife, divisions, and wars, are all started and perpetrated by words. Peace, reconciliation, harmony, tranquility are also built and sustained through words.Speak peace, forgiveness, love, and kindness where there’s misunderstanding and hostility. Do not return insult for insult, rather reply with and speak restoration.Don’t react with injury for injury instead respond with and speak healing.Let your tongue build and not break and destroy lives. Give peace, sow peace by speaking it especially to others and most especially to those who least deserve it, and it will come back to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, given from the bossom.