How do you feel when someone picks a fight with you? Do you ever want to play a mean trick on someone who has been mean to you? Have you ever heard someone say bad things about a friend?

All of these things make trouble. God says that He wants us, instead, to make peace. He wants us to be peacemakers.

Peacemakers love to hear what is good about another person. Peacemakers tell their friends not to repay bad behavior by doing bad things back. Peacemakers encourage their friends to forgive each other. We will be better peacemakers when we have peace in our hearts. How can we do that? The process begins with telling God we are sorry for the wrong things we do and asking Him for help every day.

Reading our Bibles, too, will help us know better how to live in peace. In Proverbs 6, God makes a list of things that He hates. What one of those things at the end of the list (verse 19) is the opposite of being a peacemaker?

James 3:17-18 says that people who are wise love peace. It also says that peacemakers will get a reward. Look up these verses in your Bible to see what it is!

Paraphrased from the Let’s Grow Series: The Beatitudes, published by Crown & Covenant (1990).

Terms to Know:

peace: harmony with God and man

discord: disagreement, conflict

sow: to plant

reap: to gather, as a harvest

Memory Verse

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9)