Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
Our Verse of the Day is very popular in my home with my kids. We memorized it in the ESV where it says, "Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it."
If you were to look over this entire Psalm, Psalm 34, you'd see that it's all about the fear of the Lord, and we're called to fear the Lord. That's an abstract idea, so it's good to have some concrete points about what that actually looks like. That's exactly what you have here in verse 14. Here are three things that we do. Here are three ways that we fear the Lord.
One is to turn away from evil. Second is to do good. Third is to pursue peace.
Three Ways to Fear the Lord
Let's think about each of those. First, to fear the Lord, it means to turn away from evil. That's very straightforward. My conscience. Your conscience. It's been informed by the Word of God. We know the difference between right and wrong, and we want to turn away from wrong. We don't want to have anything to do with evil. We run from it.
Secondly, to fear the Lord means to do good. That is like Ephesians chapter 5, verse 10 says, to find out what pleases the Lord. If evil is what I'm running away from, then good is what I'm running toward in my life. If evil, another way the Bible puts it, is what I'm putting off, then good is what I'm putting on.
Turn away from evil. Do good. Then this third behavior, it's a lot more specific, isn't it? It's even more concrete. It's a form of doing good. We're called to search for peace and work to maintain it, or seek peace and pursue it.
Active Peacemaking
Think about that. Seek and pursue peace. In other words, true godliness is not just this passive avoidance of conflict. Rather, it is an active pursuit of peace. That's why Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, "Blessed are the peacemakers."
Ask yourself, do you merely avoid conflict? Because that's not exactly what this verse is calling us to do. Do you just stay out of conflict? Do you just avoid conflict, or do you look to actively pursue peace in your life and in the lives of people around you?
Here's something that Martin Lloyd-Jones said about this. He said, "The peacemaker is active, not passive. He doesn't merely refrain from causing trouble. He actively works to resolve tensions, to reconcile differences, to bring harmony where there is discord. It is one of the hardest works in the world because it requires humility, wisdom, and love. But it is the work that marks a true child of God."
Practice Peacemaking Today
Why don't you practice this kind of peacemaking in one relationship today? A relationship where there may be tension, a relationship where there is conflict, maybe past hurt or even bitterness. Take a step today toward peace. Don't be passive, but take initiative toward peace. Maybe that means apologizing, or maybe that means listening. Maybe it means asking some really sincere questions. Seek peace and pursue it, today.
