Friday Deep Dive

I recall a distinct season of “peace” in a friendship that had gone sideways. We were roommates, sharing a cramped apartment and a rapidly deteriorating dynamic. After a particularly sharp exchange of words—the kind you can’t easily retract—we simply stopped speaking.

We still inhabited the same square footage. We navigated the hallway shuffle with practiced indifference. The shouting had stopped. The door-slamming ceased. By any external metric, order had been restored. But the air in that apartment was heavy enough to crush a lung.

It wasn’t peace; it was a ceasefire.

It was a cold war, maintained by a mutual agreement to ignore the elephant in the room until our lease expired. The hostility hadn’t evaporated; it had merely gone underground, simmering beneath a fragile crust of silence.

I am learning, slowly but surely, that I have spent much of my life projecting this same definition of “peace” onto God.

I operated under the assumption that if I wasn’t actively shaking my fist at the heavens—if I wasn’t robbing banks or cursing His name—then we were on good terms. I defined peace as the absence of active rebellion. I figured neutrality was enough.

But as I wade deeper into the waters of Scripture, shedding the skins of my assumptions one by one, I am finding that the biblical definition of peace is radically different. It is more robust, more demanding, and frankly, more terrifying than a simple lack of conflict.

I’m starting to see that Kingdom peace is not a ceasefire. It is a reconstruction.

In this second week of Advent, as we light the Peace candle and hum along to “Silent Night,” the reality I’m uncovering is that the theology of peace is not soft. It is bloody, it is costly, and it is permanent.

Here is what I’m learning about the cost of being translated from “enemy” to “son.”

The Scripture

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” — Romans 5:1-2 (ESV)

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” — Colossians 1:19-20 (ESV)

The Illusion of Neutrality

I flatter myself with the idea of neutrality. It is comfortable to believe that I am, at my core, a decent person who occasionally makes mistakes, rather than a rebel who has defected from the King.

“Enemy” is such a charged word. It belongs in war movies or political thrillers. I never felt like an enemy of God. I didn’t hate Him; I just found Him… inconvenient. For decades, I treated God like a software update I kept postponing.

But Paul, with his characteristic lack of subtlety, shatters this illusion in Romans. He doesn’t leave me much room for a demilitarized zone. Before Christ, I wasn’t Switzerland; I was a hostile combatant.

Romans 5:10 calls us “enemies.” Colossians 1:21 describes the state as “alienated and hostile in mind.”

Why such harsh language? Because in a cosmos created by and for God, my indifference wasn’t a neutral stance—it was treason. To live as if the King does not exist is the highest form of rebellion.

This was a bitter pill to swallow. It required me to dismantle my self-image as a “pretty good guy” and admit that my indifference was actually a stiff-armed rejection of my Creator.

I had a problem that “trying harder” couldn’t solve. You cannot negotiate a peace treaty when you have nothing to offer the other side. I was at war, whether I felt the artillery fire or not.

The Cost of the Treaty

This week, a phrase in Colossians stopped me cold. I’ve read it before, but perhaps I never truly read it.

“…making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1:20)

Making peace by blood.

The juxtaposition is jarring. I associate peace with doves, olive branches, and calm waters. God associates peace with sacrifice.

I was reading that in the ancient Near East, covenants were not signed on parchment; they were cut in flesh. Animals were severed, and blood was spilled to seal the bond. The penalty for breaking the peace was death.

But the breach between a Holy God and a rebellious humanity was too wide for the blood of bulls and goats to bridge. The debt was infinite. The hostility was total.

The cost of my peace was the violence of the Cross.

Jesus did not arrive on the scene to wave a white flag. He did not come to negotiate a truce where God agrees to look the other way if I promise to behave. He came to absorb the hostility into His own body.

He took the fire that should have consumed the enemy and allowed it to consume the Son.

This changes everything about how I view the Crucifixion. It wasn’t merely a tragedy, nor was it simply an example of self-sacrificing love. It was the signing ceremony of my peace treaty, written in the King’s own blood. He manufactured peace out of His own suffering.

So, if the cost has been paid, what is the result?

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.” (Romans 5:1)

I am learning to love the grammar of the Gospel. Notice the tense. Have. We have peace. It is a present possession, not a future possibility.

It doesn’t say, “I might have peace if I manage to avoid sinful thoughts today.” It doesn’t say, “I will have peace when I finally get my act together.” It says I have it. Right now. In the mess.

This hinges on that heavyweight theological word: Justified.

Justification is a legal term, not an emotional one. It means the Judge has banged the gavel and declared, “Not Guilty. Righteous.”

It is a change of status, not a change of nature. I am still prone to wander, still capable of sin. But my legal standing before the Throne has shifted irrevocably.

This is where I struggle. I suspect I’m not alone.

I still sin. I still lose my temper. I still have days where my heart feels cold and my prayers feel like they’re hitting the ceiling. My emotions—those unreliable narrators—tell me, “You blew it. The treaty is broken. God is angry. The war is back on.”

But my emotions are liars.

The peace treaty depends on my standing, not my state. My state fluctuates like the stock market. Some days I am pious; other days I am petty. But my standing was purchased by the blood of Jesus, and the value of that currency does not fluctuate.

The ceasefire depends on my behavior. True peace depends on His blood.

Walking in the Treaty

If this is true—if the war is emphatically, historically over—how then should I live today?

I think back to that roommate situation. If we had truly reconciled—if we had sat down, confessed our offenses, forgiven one another, and hugged it out—the atmosphere of the apartment would have changed instantly. We wouldn’t have had to sneak past each other. We could have laughed in the kitchen.

“Peace” means I can be in the same room as God and not be afraid.

Romans 5:2 says we have “obtained access.” I dug into this word, prosagoge. It implies an introduction to royalty, a bringing into the presence of the King.

I’m not just a captured soldier who has been granted amnesty. I have been adopted. I have the run of the palace.

For me, right now, this is where the rubber meets the road. As I find my footing in this walk, I’m realizing that my “faith” isn’t just about agreeing with a set of facts. It’s about letting those facts rewrite my nervous system.

It means that when I wake up with that vague sense of anxiety—the feeling that I need to do something to justify my existence—I can stop. I can breathe. I can remember that the heavy lifting was done on a hill outside Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

It means I don’t have to perform “Christianity” to keep God happy. I don’t have to offer Him a ceasefire of “good behavior.” I can offer Him the gratitude of a son who knows he’s safe.

This is a fundamental shift in my operating system. I’m moving from a motivation of fear (“I better not screw up or He’ll zap me”) to a motivation of love (“He paid everything for me; how can I not live for Him?”).

This Advent, I am trying to stop walking on eggshells with God. I am trying to silence the voice that says, “He loves you, but He doesn’t like you right right now.”

I want to walk with the confidence of someone who knows the war is over. I want to exhibit the “Radical Peace” of Colossians—a peace that was exorbitantly expensive for Him to buy, but is completely free for me to receive.

It is a peace that says, “Put down your weapons. You don’t have to fight for approval anymore. Welcome home.”

A Prayer for Peace

Father,

Thank You that You did not settle for a ceasefire. Thank You that You were not content with my silence or my distance, but You pursued me even when I was an enemy.

Jesus, I stand in awe of the cost. Thank You for making peace by the blood of Your cross. Forgive me for the ways I cheapen that sacrifice by trying to earn what You have already purchased. I confess that I often live like the war is still on—defensive, afraid, and hiding.

Help me to stand firm in the grace I have obtained. Silence the lies of my emotions with the truth of my justification. Let the reality of this reconciliation sink deep into my bones this Advent. I am not a rebel; I am a son. Help me to live with the dignity and peace that belongs to Your children.

Amen.