Video Transcript: A Peacefire Accelerant

Welcome back to PeaceSmart Relationships.  In this session, we're going to talk about accelerants for the Peacefire. 

In the last session, we talked about those responses to conflict where we attempt in our flesh to extinguish the Wildfire, to resolve the conflict.  In this session, we want to talk about an accelerant for the Peacefire. And that accelerant is love. 

David Wilkerson was a young pastor from the state of Texas and he moved to New York to minister on the streets of New York City.  And one night he came upon a street gang and the street gang’s leaders name was Nicky Cruz.  And Nicky Cruz pulled a knife on David Wilkerson and threatened to kill him.  David Wilkerson's response to Nicky Cruz was as follows: “You can cut me up into a thousand pieces.  Every piece will love you.”  

Later Nicky Cruz became a follower of Jesus Christ and to this day is a minister the gospel.  The power of God's love extinguishes the Wildfires of conflict.  God's love is manifest to us through Jesus Christ. 

In 1 Corinthians 13, we have a description of God's love to us.  And we read, “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast.  It is not proud.  It does not dishonor others.  It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” 

This is the quality of God's love for us.  God's love for us is undeserved, unearned, and unconditional. God revealed His love to us when we were still His enemy.  Romans 5:8 reads, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God's love is supernatural.  It is not a love that we have naturally within ourselves until we're born again and filled with his Holy Spirit.  Love is a faith choice, not an emotion.  When we choose to love in the midst of conflict, we're making a faith choice.  We're asking the Lord to fill us with his love so that we can love those in the conflict Wildfire who may be undeserving, who certainly have not earned our love.  But the Lord calls us to walk in love, to live in love, because He is love. 

In 1 John 4:16, we read, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in them.”

We receive God's love by abiding in Jesus Christ. And we've taught through this course, the phrase I use, the relentless reliance on Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Christ put it this way in John 15:9-12, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love just as I have kept My Father's commands, and remain in His love.  I have told you this, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: love each other, as I have loved you.”

This scripture tells us that the father loved Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ remained in the Father's love through His obedience to the Father.  Jesus Christ in turn loves us.  And He invites us to remain in His love by obeying His command to love one another. 

It's this model of Jesus Christ living in us that sends us to the Peacefire, draws us to the Peacefire, sends us back to the Wildfire as his ambassador of reconciliation, so that others may experience the same love that He has given to us.  That we might love our enemies the way He loved us when we were His enemy.

2 Corinthians 5:16-20 reads, “So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no long.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old has gone, the new is here.

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.  And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”

We are therefore, you are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through you.  We employ you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 

This is the Lord's calling to all of his sons and daughters, that as we come to know Him, and He reveals His love to us, that His love changes us.  We become a new creature. All things become new.  And in that new kingdom, we begin to grow and mature as a follower of Jesus Christ.  And as we mature, His love grows in us. 

And we become to reflect that patience, that kindness, that gentleness, that goodness, that long suffering, that love that will not speak ill of others, that love that believes the best of others, even when they've wronged us, that love that does not give up, that does not fail.  And that love can only be birthed in us through a relationship of relentless reliance on the one who gives that love, our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's the love of Jesus Christ living in you that allows you to go beyond the desired outcome in a conflict, to look beyond that, to take the log of your position, of your rights, set them aside and look at him and ask Him to fill you to reveal His purpose to you and to give you the power to go back into that Wildfire as His ambassador of reconciliation.  And watch Him work.  That's our privilege as Christian leaders and followers of Jesus Christ. 

In the next session, we're going to take a look at God's power at work in the midst of reconciling relationships in conflict and the opportunities He presents to us there. 

God bless you. We'll see you next time.