Living a life of peace

Verses: Daniel 3 : 1 -18

My thoughts about the verses:

As I read this I stared thinking about the group ISIS.  They demand loyalty and are power hungry.  They want their subjects, people that they see as under them, to do things that are impossible.  When they don’t get what they want they punish the people severely.  It is shocking how many people they have killed in the last year.

They want people to accept their religious beliefs.  They are a terroristic group.  They do not represent the common Muslim.  People that believe Islam are peaceful and loving..  Yet, this extremist group believes that Islam is the only true religion.  Instead of using peace and love to lead people to the religion they use force to get people to change their views.

When you think of ISIS and their desire to convert the world to their version of Islam it reminds me of the Crusades.  At this time Christians forgot that they were to use love to lead people to Christ.  They used force to convert Muslims to Christianity.

It is ironic that these two groups have used destruction to lead people to a peaceful religion.  We have to remember as Christians we cannot live this kind of life.  We have to stop the violence so that people can live together in harmony.

We have to remember that God is a God of peace and love.  If we accept this we will turn away from force to convert people to one religion or the other.  We all have been affected by people that use violence to attack groups.  We are taught to love each other by Jesus.  When we do this we will see that peace will come. 

Prayer:

We praise you God for your love.  We thank you for the peace that you give us.  Help us express your love and peace to everyone.  Help us be Jesus someone today.  Help us to remember that violence is not the answer to stop differences.  Instead love and peace leads to saving grace.  In the name of the Beloved One we pray.  Amen

Questions:

Have you accepted the love and grace of God?  Are you showing love to each other?  Have you accepted that people need to be treated with peace?  Are you living the life that God wants from you?