The writer of Hebrews links two things we often try to separate: peace with people and holiness before God. He tells us they are not side issues for “extra-serious” believers, but necessary conditions for truly seeing the Lord. This verse presses into our everyday relationships and our hidden motives, insisting that the way we treat others and the way we resist sin are both part of how we know and enjoy God. It invites us to ask, “Am I really pursuing peace, or just avoiding conflict? Am I really pursuing holiness, or just avoiding embarrassment?”

Peace Is a Pursuit, Not a Personality Trait

“Pursue peace with everyone…” (Hebrews 12:14). Peace is not something that just falls on “easygoing” people; it is something every believer is commanded to chase. That word “pursue” is the language of a hunter, a runner, someone leaning forward and stretching out. It means taking the first step toward reconciliation, choosing gentle words when sharp ones would feel so much better, and refusing to nurse old wounds. As Romans 12 reminds us, we are to do all we can, on our part, to live at peace with everyone—not just the people who already like us.

Jesus ties peace-making directly to our identity: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). When you work for peace, you are reflecting your Father’s heart—He came to you when you were His enemy, not His friend. This doesn’t mean peace at the expense of truth; it means telling the truth in love, with tears instead of pride. Who is the “everyone” in your life today? The difficult coworker, the cold spouse, the distant child, the brother or sister in Christ you quietly avoid? The call is to stop waiting for them to move, and in dependence on the Spirit, to start pursuing.

Holiness That Touches Everything

Hebrews 12:14 doesn’t just say “pursue peace”; it says, “Pursue peace with everyone, as well as holiness, without which no one will see the Lord”. Holiness is not a special add-on for a few; it is a family resemblance for all God’s children. Peter echoes this when he writes, “But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15–16). Holiness means being set apart for God—His values shaping your words, your habits, your entertainment, your money, your weekends, even your private thoughts.

This is not cold rule-keeping; it is love that refuses to share its heart with idols. “Therefore, beloved, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). Grace does not make holiness optional; grace makes holiness possible. Christ has washed you, given you His Spirit, and written His law on your heart. The question is not whether you are perfect yet, but whether you are moving—repenting quickly, cutting off what drags you down, and choosing obedience even when no one is watching.

Living to See the Lord

The warning is sobering: without holiness “no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). That points ahead to the day we stand before Him, but it also touches how clearly we “see” Him now. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). Impurity clouds your spiritual vision; holiness clears the fog. When you cling to bitterness, flirt with temptation, or justify compromise, you put a film over your eyes. God has not moved—but your capacity to sense His nearness and joy is dulled.

On the other hand, holiness sharpens sight. As you throw off sin and hindrances, you are freer to “fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith” (Hebrews 12:2). His peace begins to rule your heart: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). Today is not about earning God’s love; it is about removing what keeps you from enjoying it. Where is the Spirit pointing His finger in your life—an unforgiven offense, a secret sin, a habit of compromise? That is the very place He is inviting you to clearer sight of the Lord.

Father, thank You for calling me to peace and holiness and for giving me Your Spirit to make both possible. Today, help me take concrete steps to pursue peace with others and turn from every known sin, that I might see and enjoy You more clearly.

The four Gospels tell the story of the life and ministry of Jesus, and in so doing, they follow accurately the ordinary course of biography, giving the facts of His birth, growth, work, death and burial. That is the way with biography: the very word itself suggests it, for it comes from bios, life, and graphein, to write, and means the written history of a person's life. So says Noah Webster. Now, when we look at the Gospels we note an odd--and wonderful--thing. An extra chapter is added. Why? Biography, by its own definition, must confine itself to the record of the life of an individual. That part of the book which deals with the family tree is not biography, but history, and that part which follows the record of the subject's death is not biography either. It may be appraisal, or eulogy, or criticism, but not biography, for the reason that the "bios" is gone: the subject is dead. The part that tells of his death is properly the last chapter. The only place in world literature where this order is broken is in the four Gospels. They record the story of the man Jesus from birth to death, and end like every other book of biography has ended since the art of writing was invented. . . . They all agree: Jesus was dead. The life about which they had been writing was gone. The biography was ended. Then, for the only time in this history of human thought, a biographer adds to his book a new section which is authentic biography and begins to write a chapter to follow the last chapter. . . .

They go from strength to strength; every one of them appeareth before God in Zion. - Psalm 84:7

The phrase means, of course, the continuous bestowal in unintermitting sequence of fresh gifts of power, as each former gift becomes exhausted, and more is required. Instant by instant, with unbroken flow, as golden shafts of light travel from the central sun, and each beam is linked with the source from which it comes by a line that stretches through millions and millions of miles, so God’s gift of strength pours into us as we need. Grace abhors a vacuum, as nature does. And just as the endless procession of the waves rises up on to the beach, or as the restless network of the moonlight irradiation of the billows stretches all across the darkness of the sea, so that unbroken continuity of strength after strength gives grace for grace according to our need; and as each former supply is expended and used up, God pours Himself into our hearts anew. That continuous communication leads to the "perpetual youth" of the Christian soul. For the words of Isaiah, "They shall mount up with wings as eagles," might perhaps more accurately be rendered, " They shall put forth their pinions as eagles" - the allusion being to the popular belief that in extreme old age the eagle moulted and renewed its feathers - that popular belief which is referred to in Psalm 103:5, " Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s."

The same idea is here that though, according to the law of physical life, decaying strength, and advancing years, that tame and sober and disenchant and often make weary because they are familiar with all things and take the edge off everything, - though these tell upon us whether we are Christians or not, and in some important respects tell upon us all alike, yet, if we are "waiting upon God," keeping our hearts near Him, living on His love, trying to realise His inward presence and His outstretched hand, then we shall have such a continuous communication of His grace, strength, and beauty as that we shall grow younger as we grow older, and, as the good old Scotch psalm has it,

" In old age, when others fade,

They fruit still forth shall bring."

"The oldest angels are the youngest," said Swedenborg. "They that wait upon ’the Lord’ have drunk of the fountain of perpetual youth, for the buoyancy and the inextinguishable hope which are the richest possessions of youth may abide with them whose hopes are set on things beyond the sky."