“Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” – Psalm 34:14
One of the biggest challenges of being a Christian is pursuing righteousness and goodness. We all know that we are sinful by nature and as we are saved by grace through faith, we are given the power to pursue righteousness and goodness. However, we still don’t like to pursue righteousness and goodness. Instead, we are still so caught up with our past selves that we are having a hard time letting things go. If this is still the truth that we are following, then we should recheck ourselves to see if we are really in Christ.
Although, besides the fact that we must check our hearts and ponder it carefully, we must focus on the message that our verse is all about today. Again, it is really a big challenge to pursue righteousness and goodness because we are sinful. However, God is still calling us to turn from evil and do good. Just with that statement, we are already failing it. We are already failing this part because we always love to face evil rather than do good. By nature, we always delight in evil. However, we must really understand that as we are in Christ, we are given a new nature. Thus, this is possible to follow.
Next is that we are called to seek and pursue peace. As we turn our backs from evil and do good, we will have peace. Thus, we are called to pursue it and seek it. Also, we have to understand that the psalmist will not just randomly say this without meaning anything. Now, we have to realize the reason why we have to seek and pursue peace is that Christ is the perfect peace. He is the only source of grace, love, and peace that transcends all understanding. So, as we shun evil, we will be called to do good. As we do good, we are going to pursue peace through that.
Therefore, in short, the psalmist is teaching us to fear God and pursue Him at the same time. Again, fearing God does not mean He wants to control us like robots, but it just means honoring Him. Our verse today wants to remind us that it is very important to shun evil and do good for it will glorify God and honor Him. So, the second part of the verse tells us that our calling does not only stop there. We are also called to always pursue peace— to pursue Christ. As we honor and fear God, seeking Him is an everyday activity. Thus, we must always seek Him through His Word for only through Him we can have perfect peace. Now, perfect peace means being able to shun evil and do good through the power of God.
