Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 10 verses 34 through 39:
34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
37Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
I just returned from Lubbock after speaking at a symposium on drug and alcohol recovery.
The path to recovery is a pathway to peace, but first there must often be conflict.
There must be intervention.
There must be confrontation.
Sometimes that means there must also be separation.
Jesus is saying, we must prepare ourselves for the conflict and separation. We must understand that the way we would go for sanity, may mean a fracture in our families and communities.
He has not come to bring peace — not where there can be no peace. Not a false peace.
The peace we have is an inner peace. It is a peace that surpasses all understanding — and misunderstanding.
Our peace will sometimes be seen as sword.
But what it is is a boundary, and a dividing line, and a point of clarification about who we are and who we intend to be.
“And the one who loses their life shall find it.”
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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