When I think of the word peace, I pretty much think of the opposite of war. I guess I’ve always been taught that those are the extremes – peace and war. But when I read through my New Testament, I find that really, that’s not the case at all.

We are called to be peaceful people (Matthew 5:9, Romans 12:18, James 3:18). The world knows that Christians are supposed to be peaceful, so in their mind – the mind of peace equals the opposite of war – it seems that the idea of Christians being peacemakers means that Christians must be cowards. Christians must be quiet. Christians must mind their own business when they’re bullied about an unpopular view. Christians must give in. Christians must be tolerant.

That’s not peace, though. Peace isn’t just being quiet. Peace isn’t letting people trample over the truth. Peace is akin to contentment; accepting turmoil for the cause of Christ. The life of a Christian will be peaceful (John 14:27), but only when we turn all of our cares over to the God who is in control (Phil. 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7). It won’t be peaceful once we’ve rid our lives of conflict – that will never happen! But it will be peaceful once we’ve accepted God’s terms for our lives.

A passage that really brought this to light for me is Romans 16:19-20, where Paul writes,

For your obedience has become known to all. Therefore I am glad on your behalf; but I want you to be wise in what is good, and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.

Here, we see that the God of peace is going to completely obliterate Satan. This peaceful God is going to annihilate our enemy. They are in a war, and we are on the winning side! God will crush– it’s going to happen! And when it happens, we will be living in total peace.

But we can have peace before the war is over. We can have peace while we’re continuing to fight (Eph. 6:10-13). This verse should be what gives us peace – knowing that the Creator and Ruler of the universe is fighting the battle for us, knowing that we don’t have to stress about what people may say or do to us, knowing that we don’t have to worry about how much money we accumulate or how popular we are. We are confident that Jesus’ blood has cleansed us, and we are confident that God Almighty will crush our enemy. What more do we need to live in total peace and tranquility? Sure, negative circumstances will arise. There will be health concerns and enemies and outspoken media and legalized abominations and persecutions from every side. But we will keep our peace, while we continue to march out into battle day in and day out until our Lord Jesus returns, because the God who is peace is also a God who is mighty to save. Blessed be His name!