“The love of peace and the unwillingness to fight never kept anyone out of trouble.”
                    –Louis L’Amour  (North to the Rails)

       “I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
                    –John 16:33 (HCSB)

         “Blessed are the peacemakers:  for they shall be called the children of God.”  –Matthew 5:9 (KJV)
         “Blessed…are the makers and maintainers of peace, for they shall be called the sons of God!” –Matthew 5:9 (Amplified)

     From the start we need to distinguish the difference between peace and appeasement.  They are not synonyms!  The peace of God has a price–the precious blood of Jesus.  Appeasement is the easy way; the way of compromise.  Through appeasement Neville Chamberlain gave away peace in the Munich Conference saying, “We have made peace with honour.  I believe it is peace for our time.”  To which, Winston Churchill replied, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour.  You chose dishonour and you will have war.”  Britannica says that appeasement is “the foreign policy of pacifying an aggrieved country through negotiation.”  I think of appeasement every time I see someone put their hand up with the “chicken tracks” (i.e., the peace sign)  Back in the days of World War II, it meant something totally different–victory!
     Yes, we are to pursue peace.  We read in Hebrews, “Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness–without it no one will see the Lord.” (12:14, HCSB)  Peter states, “He must turn away from evil and do good.  He must seek peace and pursue it.” (1 Peter 3:11, HCSB)  How does one then go about pursuing peace?  I remember the days of the Cold War.  To be at peace meant having more formidable weapons than the Soviet Union.  First of all peace is duty implied.  We are to be people of peaceable-mindedness.  We do what we can to maintain peace, whether it be national, on the job, in the home.  Then peace is also duty expressed.  Where and when we can we are to be peacemakers.  
     However, we must beware of false prophets.  We must beware of peace-at-any-price.  We must beware of pseudo-peace.  We must beware of appeasement calling it peace.  Jeremiah gives two warnings regarding false peace.  “They have treated My people’s brokenness superficially, claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” (6:14, HCSB) and “They have treated superficially the brokenness of My dear people, claiming:  Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” (8:11, HCSB)  Many of those who clamor for peace do not know that peace often comes at a very dear cost.  See, real peace, the peace in the heart of a Christian cost the blood of Jesus upon the cross.  John Stott reminds us, “Peacemaking is a divine work.  For peace means reconciliation.”  We must first be reconciled to God before there can be any true, lasting peace.  Salvation brings peace with God.  Paur writes in Colossians 1:20, “and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” (NKJV)  When we accept Jesus as Savior we then become the children of God.  Truly, one cannot make real lasting peace with others without being at peace with God and self.
     What then is peace?  The Greek term is “eirene.”  It is not spoken of in a negative state and it never means the absence of trouble.  It means peace in the midst of troubles.  In Hebrew, “shalom” means peace in the manner that everything which makes for man’s highest good.  It is not only the absence of evil things, but also the presence of good things.  The Bible proclaims, as William Barclay states, “In the Bible peace means not only freedom from all trouble; it means enjoyment of all god.”  Blessed are the peacemakers then are those who bring about good.  It is not necessarily stopping conflict, though that is to be sought, but it is in the midst of the conflict to bring about good.