10 Questions: Are you a person of peace?
The kingdom of God is like leaven that leavens all the bread. In the kingdom of God, small is great. At home in small groups, through eating, praying and laughing together, signs and wonders and through families of the kingdom, the world is changed (Acts 2:42ff.). Oh, how hard it is for us to see God’s kingdom in the little things. And what is the kingdom of God anyway? But more about that later.
Now it is about you. We seek you. The king has sent us to find you. You speak English with a classy Russian, Bulgarian, Spanish, African or another accent.
Are you ready? Are you the person we are looking for? It doesn’t matter if you have already made Jesus your Lord, if you simply believe in Jesus or if you are a disciple who puts the Kingdom of God first.
Jesus gave us all this assignment. Very few people have ever heard of it, even though Jesus has always modeled it for us how to do it.
Jesus’ is clear: “Seek persons of peace so that I can come to their homes afterwards”.
He has not only painted it before our eyes through his ministry in people’s homes. He has also repeatedly trained large groups of disciples to find persons of peace. So it is not surprising that we find this ministry throughout Acts as the primary way in which Jesus was made known through small teams throughout the then known world. A little leaven that changes an entire world empire.
But then the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them two and two before him to all the cities and places where he himself wanted to go.
Luke 10:1
And if there be a son of peace there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, he will return to you. And dwell in the same house, and eat and drink that which is set before you; for the worker is worthy of his reward. Do not go from one house to another.
Luke 10:6-7
There is much we can learn about a person of peace. What is noticeable here is that this person receives us and begins to invite us in a practical way with the things that exist. Yes, serving us in a way.
Imagine Luke 10 in a very practical way: Jesus sends out small teams and tells them to go without money, without much preparation (except prayer for a multiplication of harvest workers) and without being distracted. The only thing they can consistently offer in the House of Peace is peace. They serve the person of peace with words of life and prayer for God’s wonderful intervention in the truest sense of the word. In return, the person of peace puts on the table what is in the refrigerator. This has little to do with organization and a systematic program. Almost like leaven. The master plan is with Jesus.
The second thing that constitutes a person of peace is that he is able to transfer the words he hears into his own words and pass them on to people around him. That is why we also need people with different classy dialects.
Here is an example for illustration: An American friend of mine was a missionary in India. He was told at the beginning: “These are your 30 villages. Take regular prayer walks. When the first person gives his life to Jesus, stay in this house, don’t go to other houses”. After some time one man began to follow Jesus and shortly after that his neighbour. For a moment my friend was tempted. He knew so much more about the Bible, the new convert was so inexperienced, the neighbor was just across the street and he had time. But then he recognized the chance. “He will be able to teach his neighbor what I teach him much better! Besides, he will be a harvest worker from the beginning instead of a passive listener! Please read here what 2 Timothy 2:2 says about the fourfold generational chain:
And what you have heard from me before many witnesses, entrust it to faithful people who will be able to teach others.
2 Timothy 2:2
Persons of peace can be God-fearing people like Lydia from Acts 16. Through her house the gospel came to Philippi. Or it could be someone like the woman at the well in John 3 with a doubtful reputation through whom the whole village heard of Jesus. As you pray through the New Testament, you will notice many more such people.
But now back to you. The king has sent us to find you. Do you want to believe with us that we are the leaven that can give the bread of life to a hungry generation? Even if everyone says the opposite and does not think this is possible? But the Spirit of God says: A great awakening is about to come.
Dead faith often eats its own children. Like during the siege of Samaria by Benhadad in 2 Kings 6 and 7, where two women had cooked and eaten their own children. In this distress even pigeon dung was worth five pieces of silver. Imagine, in the midst of this situation, the prophetic word comes through Elisha:
And Elisha said, Hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the LORD; Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour will be a shekel in the gate of Samaria, and two measures of barley a shekel! 2 Kings 7:1
The king’s officer gives an interesting answer:
Then the officer on whose arm the king was leaning answered the man of God and said, “Behold, even if the Lord made windows in heaven, how could this happen? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine own eyes, but shalt not eat of it. 2 Kings 7:2
But the despair of four leprous men could be used by God. They wanted to go to the army camp of their enemies. So they discovered that the enemies had fled through God’s supernatural intervention and that bread and flour were abundant in the abandoned camp.
I can identify with these men. Certainly not heroes, but there was this little mustard seed of faith in them, not wanting give in the situation.
That is why we are looking for you. Are you a person of peace? Do you hear God’s voice saying that the windows of heaven are about to open? If you cry out at least three times, sighing inwardly at the following questions, “Yes, yes, yes”, then you are probably such a person of peace and a multiplier after God’s own heart.
- Are you ready to start with nothing and just walk like in Luke 10?
- Are you ready to pray for more workers for the harvest ahead?
- Do you long for God and to be sent out into a great harvest?
- Are you so gripped by the words of Jesus that you begin to seek persons of peace, even if that means trial and error as mentioned in Luke 10?
- Will you seek together with us to find more persons of peace?
- Are you ready to let nothing stop you from finding more persons of peace?
- Are you so desperate for divine bread that you set out in the direction of the enemy camp?
- Are you ready to believe the impossible and say: Tomorrow there will be enough bread for everyone?
- Did you pray in your youth that you want to experience great things with God and forgot about it for a long time?
- Do you simply want more and experience how sick people are healed, demons flee and people find Jesus?
As I said before, it is difficult for us to see the kingdom of God in small, seemingly insignificant things. In God’s kingdom, small is great. After the first joy of the returning small teams from Luke 10 the old mindset took over again: Am I the greatest in this team? Praying, denying myself, charity to Samaritans? My activism will impress Jesus (and others)! These were the topics in the team that Jesus had to address again and again in the following chapters of Luke. How did he do that? A new discipleship program, building a big church? Many of us would vehemently deny this and then put our hope on new programs and better organized churches.
No, Jesus’ answer was again and again that he shared about the nature of the kingdom of God in the small group of disciples. He trained them in real situations and conversations and rarely through big speeches. The kingdom of God’s thinking is so opposed to our flesh and our “church mindset”. A good example is the word “evangelism”. What comes to you as an inner image? A guitar-playing, slightly anxious Christian on a street corner? A gifted professional in front of tens of thousands of people? No, this is not a biblical picture. We are families, teams and houses that change the world. We are leaven. We wait in prayer and then seek the person of peace so that Jesus can meet these persons of peace.
And that is exactly our mission and our longing. Our longing is to inspire a viral discipleship movement that increases discipleship, evangelism, interchurch teams, simple living room churches, and prayer in your city. We want to train trainers to train other trainers! In small groups that learn to pray, laugh, eat and walk together to proclaim the kingdom of God. As expressed in Ephesians 4, we are also committed to ensuring that “disciples in your city” increasingly get the chance to be trained by the five-fold ministry that enables us to reach the full maturity of God. Such ministries do not need large programs and training centers. The school of life in your city is big enough to learn how the kingdom of God can be leaven for our city. We have also consciously decided that we want to strengthen the intercessor in your region in prayer.
Where can we start? Let us pray together. In many countries we already have experience with online prayer groups. We come together as small groups, praying and learning together.
What does this mean for the future? Each one of us has a calling. We are called apostolically to go into the world in small teams to reach (unreached) peoples. Together as teams we will not only reach more and more people around you, but we will also be able to send teams all over the world.
Now back to you! If you have said yes three times above, then contact us.
It would be nice to meet you and talk to you.
Blessings, Günther
Tag:person of peace