“You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.” Isaiah 26:3
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:1
Some people search their whole lifetime for peace and never find it. Some people search for peace and find little pieces and small seasons of it and find peace seems to come and go like the tide, sometimes in big waves, sometimes in small ones, but always drifting back out to sea and out of reach again. Some people find a peace that so far surpasses all other kinds of peace that there simply is no other peace like it, and find this peace can never be taken away, and that they always have access to it, even if they seem to lose their grasp on it for little bits of time anyway, but know deep inside it is always in reach, if only they would go back to the source, to where they have found it.
One day the Lord said this to me about peace:
“You won’t find peace in your circumstances,” the Spirit of God spoke to my heart. “You will find peace in me.”
The greatest peace there ever was, and ever is, and ever will be, is the peace that comes when we admit we are sinners against God, when we seek God’s forgiveness, and when we turn away from a lifestyle of sin and place our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord who died on the cross to pay our sin penalty and was raised from the dead so all who believe in Him, truly committing their lives to Him, are forgiven and given the promise of an everlasting relationship with God. This peace is a peace Christ’s followers now have WITH God. We are at peace with the Lord because we are forgiven and now belong to Him!
Once we have this peace of being forgiven by God, and of being in forever fellowship with Him, and we come to know the Lord more and more, growing ever closer to and becoming ever more like Christ, deeply devoting our hearts and lives to Him, sincerely learning how to forsake the world’s ways and our selfish lusts and learning how to live for God, to love and glorify Him forever, and we come to know Jesus more and more, and become ever more intimate with Him, ever more yielding ourselves to Him not only as Savior but as Lord and master, we come more and more to know a peace IN Christ.
When the Lord spoke to me that day, I was so at peace. I had had a rough week due to some challenging circumstances involving loved ones, and I had been through a fiery trial for several days, a grueling one. The Lord had used a friend to remind me of the first scripture above which is so pure and powerful in its message.
Peace in Christ comes when we not only believe in Him as Lord, and submit ourselves to His lordship, but when we turn our eyes and ears and hearts and minds away from our circumstances, which can be anything but peaceful, and when we place our trust in Jesus, and set our gaze upon Him, and look at Him and to Him, and behold Him, and draw near, and nearer and nearer still to Him, and bask and soak in the beauty and solace and healing salve of God’s Word, and draw into ourselves His love, and His comfort and compassion, and consider Him, and think about Him, and are thankful to Him, and rest in the beauty of His grace, and, yes, oh, His peace, His amazing, amazing peace. When we trust that God shelters us under His wings, that no matter what happens to us on this earth, no matter how hard, how scary, how overwhelming, how hard, how horrible, how anything, we belong to Jesus forever, and we have access to Him at all times, and one day we will be with Him in a place, a forever place, where there is no more pain, no tears, no disease, no death, no violence, no division, no war, no persecution, nothing but God and His love and His holiness and splendor and glory forevermore, oh such peace, such peace to be found and experienced and enjoyed in Jesus!
When we place our trust in Jesus, and in His peace, we are not promised wars on this earth and in our homes and hardships in our schools and hurts on our streets and on and on won’t happen, won’t occur, and that all will be well and easy wherever we are, wherever we go, whatever we do. But we can rest in Jesus’ peace, for we realize He is our peace, and we can trust the Lord to carry us through, all the way through, and in God’s everlasting arms we can relax, and unwind, and breathe, deeply, gazing up at Him, at His majesty, and know He is ours forever, and we are His, and our peace is not contingent on the world all around us, but is based on the Lord, who is forever, and so then, so then is our peace.
Everlasting peace, the only forever peace, is through Jesus and in Jesus. Come to Jesus, dear one. Come to Him. And if you are already His, and you are needing peace, turn your focus. Turn your attention. Turn your gaze. To Him. Place your trust in Him. Entrusting Him with everything. Entrusting Him with everyone. Not looking to your circumstances. Looking to Jesus. Who is peace. Prince of peace. Eternal peace.
May the peace of Christ be yours, friend. Amen. May you know His peace!