Pursuing Peace
Scripture:
10 For the Scriptures say,
“If you want to enjoy life and see many happy days,
keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies.
11 Turn away from evil and do good.
Search for peace, and work to maintain it.
12 The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right,
and his ears are open to their prayers.
But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil.”[b]
-1 Peter 3:10–12 (NLT)
Peter isn’t describing a life of ease. He’s describing a life of intention. If you want to enjoy life and see good days, he says, start with your tongue. That’s not where most of us begin when we think about living well. We think about circumstances, opportunities, relationships. But Peter starts with the mouth, and he’s right to do so. The words we speak reveal what we love, what we fear, and who we are becoming. A life that honors God begins with honesty and refuses to traffic in evil speech. Not because God is keeping score, but because the way we speak shapes the world around us, and He calls us to shape it toward truth.
From the tongue Peter moves to the hands, and the will. Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and work to maintain it. These are active commands, not passive suggestions. Love is at the center of the life of those who follow Christ, and love always moves. It reaches toward the good and turns from what destroys. And the call to seek peace carries real weight. Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is something you pursue, work for, and at times pay a price for. Standing in the face of what is wrong and calling it wrong, without hatred and without cruelty, is some of the most costly work a follower of Jesus will ever do. Blessed are the peacemakers, not the ones who simply avoid conflict.
Spurgeon, preaching on exactly this kind of peace, made a distinction that has stayed with the church for more than a century. He wrote that we are to be “first pure, then peaceable,” and that our peaceableness must never become a compact with sin or an alliance with evil. We must set our faces against what is contrary to God and His holiness, and from that settled place, move toward peace with others. That ordering matters. A peace that glosses over evil is not biblical peace. It is avoidance dressed up as virtue. We are called to something harder and more beautiful than that.
“We are to be ‘first pure, then peaceable.’ Our peaceableness is never to be a compact with sin, or an alliance with that which is evil. We must set our faces like flint against everything which is contrary to God and His holiness.”¹ — C.H. Spurgeon, The Peacemaker
And here is the comfort in all of it: the eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and His ears are open to their prayers. That is not a small thing. In a world that can make goodness feel invisible and costly, God sees. He is attentive. He is not indifferent to the person who chooses honesty when deception would be easier, who pursues peace when conflict would be more satisfying, who calls evil what it is when the crowd calls it progress. May we be those people. May we never drift so far into the noise of the world that we find ourselves calling evil good and good impractical. To live for God’s Kingdom is to live under the rule and reign of the One and Only true King who is full of unfailing love, grace and mercy.
Reflection:
- How does the way you speak reflect what you truly value and believe?
- Where in your life is God calling you to pursue peace rather than avoid conflict?
- What does it mean to you that God’s eyes are watching over those who do right?
Prayer:
Ask God to guard your tongue and give you the courage to do good, even when it costs you. Pray for a heart that pursues peace without compromising truth, and rest in the promise that He sees every act of faithfulness, however small it may feel.
Footnote:
¹ C.H. Spurgeon, “The Peacemaker,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 7 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1861).