Walk Of Life – Day 26 – February 2022- Thoughts From The Book Of Proverbs – Love!
LOVE TO CEASE STRIFE
Proverbs 26:21 “As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife.”
Contentious man is the one who loves strife. They cannot digest it when they see people reconciling, forgiving each other by letting go of the past. They ears brighten, ears alert and tongue ready to work as the match stick, when they come across a strife between two persons. The word of God calls them as coal and wood to burning coals and fire respectively.
Is this what God desires from His children? No, God wants His children to be peacemakers. When we see a strife, it should neither make us enjoy it nor should it make us not bother about it. We should be the agents to reconcile. We perform this duty first by praying to the Lord with burden. Only after He lets us go, then we go to perform the duty that the Lord has assigned us to do.
Consider, in a family if there is a strife between siblings, what would the parents do? Do they raise one child against the other by filling their ears with the bad of the other child, or by supporting the anger of one child? No, they would encourage them to reconcile, they tell the children to forgive each other and overlook the other child’s mistakes. This is the duty that God wants us to do as His children among the Church. This is the same ministry that the Lord Jesus did, the ministry of reconciliation between mankind and the Holy God.( 2 Corinthians 5:19).
We are bound to follow the Christ in performing this ministry. One of my friends shared one experience that he came across in his assembly. There was a strife between two brothers in the church. A foolish deed of one person much younger cause so much anger to the other person. The angry person just wanted to go and thrash this person who did wrong. The elders were not interested to involve as the anger of the person is justified. My friend went to the person with anger and spoke to him, offered to take the punishment of the person on himself, thereby received a tight slap. The person’s anger has lessened a bit and he will take some time to reconcile, but will not have the same anger to go up and beat the younger one. The world calls this boy who went in between as a fool or show off. However, the Holy Bible calls him the child of God and a peacemaker. This man’s effort to reconcile has stopped the strife to become worse. He could afford to stop the strife, though he suffered a slap.
What are we doing today? Are we taking sides in a strife and forming groups? Are we giving a deaf ear, leading our lives as it is not our business? When God has not given you the wisdom to go and speak, you do not. However, living in the same family you do get the burden to pray for those who are striving, just the way you pray when your very own biological family members strive with each other.
Always love to see the people around you to live in peace, but not in strife.
