Brian Kolling

Peace rallies are in the news. With the outbreak of war in Iraq, people around the world are rallying for peace. Some do so in the name of Jesus. Indeed much has been written from a religious perspective about the rightness and wrongness of the current war and the hope for peace.

This debate is an important one but I feel compelled to write about a different peace. It is the kind of peace that Jesus talked of often.

Indeed, Jesus’ peace is a different kind all together: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).

When Jesus speaks of peace, He often isn’t speaking about the absence of conflict between countries but an absence of conflict between each human and God.

Colossians 1:21 tells us, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” From the Bible’s eternal perspective, we are born alienated from God and as His enemy because of sin.

It is a war played out on a grand stage with eternal consequences.

God, in His great love, wants to end the war. The above Colossians passage also tells us “But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation – if you continue in the faith.” (Col 1:22)

I have learned that there is only one solution to peace in my war with God and that is my unconditional surrender, trusting completely in Jesus (and not my own efforts) to be reconciled with God and gain eternal life.

In this sense, there is no higher calling than being a peace activist in this war of the soul. Second Corinthians 5 tells us, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; … 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 men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

So perhaps you are one who has been at war with God for a long time and now ache to be reconciled to Him through Christ? If so, He is waiting for your surrender, for your trust and for the reconciliation that can bring you eternal life with Him.

Brian Kolling is the minister for Campus Crusade for Christ. His views do not represent the views of the entire Campus Interfaith Council. Write to him at [email protected].