We do not hear so much of “Peacemaking”, but we often hear about “Peace Talks”.

The truth is that talk is cheap; so you must go beyond words to become a peacemaker.

You can’t simply “talk peace” into operation in the lives of people and expect it to happen without action. You actually “make peace” with your entire life and lifestyle, in addition to your admonition, proposals, and declarations.

You can be a boring, irritating, and obnoxious disturber of peace with your actions, attitude, gestures, facial expressions, mode of dressing, and overall lifestyle, without uttering one word.

However, most of what deeply and continually disturb our peace emanate from our speech, tone, words, and the wrong timing of communication.

Peace of mind and heart is one of the most important factors for a successful life, and a great spiritual and emotional asset for our survival, growth, maturity, and fruitfulness.

If you want to experience personal peace on a regular basis, then you must learn how to forgive offences, avoid offending people as much as you can, and become a peacemaker who brings healing between (and among) people, with your entire life. 

I wish to enumerate a few of the benefits of peace and peacemaking. When you have inner peace of heart and mind:

1) You can consistently focus on what is necessary and important.

2) You can set your priorities right and organize properly.

3) You are able to hear God better, speaking to you with an inner voice, and dropping good ideas into your spirit.

4) You can easily experience joy and happiness since peace is strongly linked with joy.

5) The door is opened for good communication that enables you to have listening ears for people around you, and respect their input. You find it easier to engage in useful dialogue and listen to good opinions of people.

6) You create the atmosphere for God to pour His grace and blessings into your soul and surroundings.

7) People find it easier and more delightful to approach you. Your facial expression, peaceful communication, and gentle attitude make you more approachable.

8) You naturally manufacture a very strong inner medicine of peace that fights, prevents, and defeats stress that will open you up to many diseases, since stress is a dangerous factor that drastically reduces our natural immune system.

9) You are able to properly enjoy your fiancée, husband or wife, children, parents, in-laws, relatives, neighbours, colleagues, friends, job or profession, a position of responsibility, favour and privileges, money, purchases, and good results of your labour. 

10) You are able to gladly say a meaningful goodbye to your spouse, children, parents, and those of your household on your way out of the house.

11) You operate calmly and productively to your optimum for your work and all that you do (from the kitchen and bedroom to your classroom and workplace etc.).

12) You are poised to engage wisely, friendly, and productively on social media platforms, radio, television, meetings, conferences, seminars, preaching, teaching, and all areas of private and public speaking.

13) You arm yourself with an important tool of inner peace that will help you to teach and train your children to the best of your ability.

14) You position yourself to manage your relationships properly, enjoy your husband or wife with enthusiasm, and derive the best from your marriage or courtship.

15) You are able to meditate, pray, and worship God better.

16) Since peace is a fruit of God’s Holy Spirit, being peaceful within you as a Believer is one of the signs of God’s Spirit actively working in your life.

The fact is that you cannot maintain any flourishing good relationship if you do not seek to become a peacemaker each day of the life of that relationship.

Peace is the close sister of grace, love, and joy, all of which are needed to nourish and maintain all your relationships and make them productive.

It is impossible to be a real peacemaker who makes meaningful and lasting peace, without any reasonable cost --- appreciable sacrifice on your part.

It cost our Lord Jesus His life and blood, for Him to die in order to make peace between us (humans) and God Almighty whom we have offended with our sins. “He is our peace”, then “He made Peace”, and finally “preached peace” (Ephesians 2:14-15, 17).

If you are not ready to sacrifice time, money, resources, and your prestige, and sit down with people in your courtship, marriage, workplace, business, institution, church, ministry, or other relationships to engage in dialogue, mutual planning, settling of issues, making of genuine apologies and concessions, and patient building of broken bridges, then you will NEVER become a genuine peacemaker in any productive and satisfying relationship.

We can be peacemakers if we observe the following:

 1) When we feel offended, we should honestly admit that we are displeased or angry, when asked or confronted, for the truth to come out and for the matter bothering us to be resolved in love and peace.

2) When you sense or observe resentment and anger in a companion, you should also approach or confront the person in love, with the genuine desire to be a peacemaker.

3) You should not become a person with malice who seeks to investigate what is in people’s hearts and minds in order to get weapons to use against them.

4) We should do the best we can to make people feel free to interact with us, in order not to create an atmosphere of fear, threats, intimidation, or competition that silence people and force them to keep all their disapproval and anger in them no matter how they are treated.

5) If you have been helpful to your spouse, family member, in-law, friend, Christian brother or sister, or a colleague, it is not right to use your kindness to manipulate and control the person. Do not cause the one to feel so obliged to you that you can feel free to mistreat the individual and expect him or her to swallow every abuse, cheating, foolishness, laziness, pride, disrespect, deception, infidelity, selfishness, or unloving attitude of yours without ever feeling offended and angry.

6) We need to train ourselves for the appropriate exposure to healthy expression of disapproval and anger from people close to us, or who receive our words and are influenced by our attitudes far and near.  

Some of them will offer us constructive criticism that will be helpful to us. We need such exposure to humble us, help organize our lives properly, learn how to improve upon our treatment of people, and deepen our love and understanding in our relationships.

7) We have to prayerful, wisely, and thoughtfully express our disapproval as humbly as possible WHEN IT IS NECESSARY TO DO SO.

8) Our companions should also give us listening ears that hear our voices as well as our hearts, and give us the right responses for us to resolve all matters properly and completely.  We then take time to dialogue and negotiate appropriately, and help everyone on the team or in the relationship to gain the desired understanding for us to move on progressively.

9) If we bottle up anger in us for too long, we sink into deep-seated resentment and bitterness or develop self-pity, depression, and silence that cut off communication, love, and fellowship with those around us.  We can also accumulate piles of anger or cause our anger to become inflated till we explode in all directions for the burning debris to fall and harm everyone in contact with us.

10) We should, however, know that we are not to be immature and sensitive or people without endurance in a disturbing way, always expressing anger at every little thing and foolishly blowing out our anger in a destructive manner in public and in private.

Determine to finish 2017 with plans to train yourself and become a great peacemaker who represents the true character of God as a peaceful and loving sweet family person and enjoyable companion for others in the year 2018 and beyond. 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God” (Mathew 5:9).

By: Rev. Dr Samuel Kisseadoo, Virginia, USA. Professor of Biology, International Evangelist, Ordained Licensed Minister, Marriage and Relationships Counselor, Conference Speaker.

Obtain more from Dr Kisseadoos, book: “Restoring Broken Relationships” at Challenge Bookstores in Ghana, Baptist Bookstore opposite Anglican High School at Amakom in Kumasi, or at Fruitful Ministries office in Accra Ghana (233-208126533), and places where books are sold.
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Email: kisseadoo@msn.com.                                                                                     Website: www.fruitfulministriesint.com.

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For free counselling and prayer, seminars, meetings, copies of Dr Kisseadoo’s books, messages on CD etc. contact him in the USA.

In Ghana call or WhatsApp 233-208126533 in Accra, or 233-275353802 in Kumasi.

Use his name “Dr Samuel Kisseadoo” to search: Amazon.com for some of his books.

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