"Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way."

Rome had a phrase for it. Pax Romana. The Roman Peace. And here's what I need you to know about that so called peace. It was not peace at all. It was survival. It meant if you submitted, if you obeyed, if you paid your taxes and kept your head down, Rome would let you live. They would allow you to go about your business as long as you remembered who was really in charge.

Israel had learned to survive in that kind of peace. They learned the posture. They learned to accommodate. They learned how to make it work even when it was undesirable. And into that carefully managed arrangement came the One who is actual peace. And He looked like disruption.

Can I just say something? I think we have the same problem in our families today. We have confused comfort for peace. We have mistaken the absence of conflict for the presence of Christ. Just like Israel under Rome, we have learned to accommodate. We have learned to make it work. And we call that peace.

Look at the American family landscape right now. Parents avoid conflict with their children because they have stopped correcting them. Spouses are not working through conflict because they have stopped communicating. Families appear peaceful because everyone is in their own room, on their own screen, living their own separate life under the same roof. And we call that peace?

That is not peace. That is Pax Romana in your living room. That is accommodation dressed up as harmony. That is survival mode disguised as family life.

The prophet Isaiah spoke of a different kind of peace when he wrote, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you" (Isaiah 26:3). True peace is not the absence of tension. True peace comes from a heart anchored in trust. It comes from a life centered on Christ, not on comfort.

So here is the uncomfortable question. What brokenness have you normalized in your home and called it peace? What dysfunction have you learned to live with because confronting it would cost too much? What arrangement are you protecting that God actually wants to transform?

I wonder if we have accepted a counterfeit peace because the real thing costs too much to pursue. Real peace requires honesty. Real peace requires presence. Real peace requires the hard work of actually engaging with the people under your roof instead of just coexisting with them.

If we want true peace in our families, we have to stop protecting a lifestyle that God wants to transform. We have to stop excusing and justifying the brokenness we have learned to tolerate. Because Jesus did not come to help us survive. He came to bring life, and life abundantly.

Tomorrow we will look at Joseph, a righteous man who had his own plan for peace. His plan was good, but God had something greater in mind.

1. What areas of your family life have you learned to tolerate or ignore rather than address with honesty and love?

2. How might the "peace" in your home actually be accommodation or avoidance rather than the presence of Christ?

Have one honest conversation today with a family member about something you have been avoiding. Choose presence over pretense.