By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

Think about where there is conflict in your life. Some people certainly have more peace than others but we live in a society in which there is always conflict. It can be between two cowboys on the rodeo grounds fighting about a girl they both dated, a group of ranchers fighting the Bureau of Land Management or against a solar panel project on valuable grazing land. Global conflicts that we otherwise would know little about can impact the price of gas here at home.

There’s often someone on the rodeo grounds who always either seems to be in trouble of some kind or he’s someone who is looking to cause it. I think we even celebrate chaos. The person attracting or causing trouble has no shortage of like-minded friends.

That comes from our sin nature. Regardless of what someone believes in terms of their faith, we are all born into sin; we all have the ability from birth to feel anger or even hate. A saving faith in Jesus changes that. It doesn’t remove our ability to sin but it starts us on a path toward becoming more like Jesus. It doesn’t make us better than those living in conflict and conflict of our own is still going to happen. This world isn’t perfect and while we grow more like Jesus as we grow in our faith, sin around us is still going to bring conflict into our lives.

How we, as Christians, approach it is where it all changes.

James 3:13-18 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

If we seek wisdom from God, how we approach conflict changes. Without Jesus, it’s easier to be influenced by bitter jealousy and selfish goals and those attitudes are going to lead us right into conflict. Worse, James says when we seek our own ambitions in a selfish way, our actions progress from being worldly thinking to something that’s even demonic. Just like he shares in James 2 that the words we speak have the power to unleash hell on Earth, how we work to achieve our goals can be the work of hell just as easily. He isn’t kidding around when he tells us to seek godly wisdom as we live out our lives here. Godly wisdom, he tells us, is pure, can lead to peace and giving mercy to others. When our goals line up with what God would want us to do and our actions to achieve them follow God’s instructions for us through scripture, we generate peace around us and demonstrate righteousness.

Producing righteousness means that our pursuit of godly wisdom creates signs of what is good, just and right for others to see. In that way, we can begin to show our saving faith in Jesus is real and transforming us in the hope others would desire this in their lives as well.

It’s up to us as believers to pursue biblical knowledge which is our main source of godly wisdom. If we’re unsure on our own of what God would have us do, we should seek advice from other Christians that we know and trust approach their faith the same way.

Going back to the Old Testament, Proverbs reminds us that as real as the harm that can be done by pursuing our own goals without God, pursuing wisdom leads to results that are more valuable to gems and precious metals.

By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Social media gives everyone of us the ability to share our opinions. But does that mean we should? We are out there every chance we get expounding on what we think about issues. I...