Abiding in His Peace

If you’re anything like me, you might be feeling like nothing in the world makes sense. A lot of people are complaining about not being able to distinguish the truth from a lie anymore. Things feel very confusing, and we must know this is exactly the effect the devil wants. Distraction is the name of his game, and he uses confusion to separate us from the stability Jesus Christ offers. God tells us in 1Corinthians 14:33 that He’s not the author of confusion and chaos. In Him there’s peace, and this is what He wants us to experience continually in our lives, but there’s also something we must know. God’s peace is freely offered to us, but we have a part to play as well. We must discipline our minds so that His peace can rule, and our emotions of doubt and fear must take a backseat.

This is a tough one for many people, because they find it easier to doubt than to have faith.  No one can really explain it, but people would rather believe in a negative outcome more than they would a positive outcome. They are so imbedded in a negative way of thinking that renewing their minds is out of the question. Everything out of their mouths heads south rather than north, and when it all boils down to it, this is because they don’t believe God’s Word and they don’t trust Him to be faithful to it.

Isaiah 26:3 (NLT) says about God, “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” To fix our thoughts is to stay our minds on Jesus Christ. Our mind is a tool. It was given to us to connect with God on a level that pleases Him and edifies us. God’s Word tells us that Adam and Eve walked and talked with God daily. They had fellowship and communed with Him. This is the Creator of the universe we’re talking about here, and it pleased Him to have a mutual and intelligent relationship with humanity. This hasn’t changed but increased. Through Jesus Christ, humans are not servants but children of God. Ephesians 1:5(NLT) says, “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”

Our marriages and relationships teach us many things, and one of them is the importance of communication—frequent and quality communication. Effective communication is a two-way street. It is how a quality relationship is built, and to grow in faith we must have continual communication with God. He speaks to us. He speaks through His Word, the Bible. He speaks through His Holy Spirit that indwells us, and He speaks to us through others. As our relationship with Him grows, we become better at discerning His voice so that we recognize it instantly. This is what God wants, but when we experience the complexities and entanglements of adversity, some of us run in the opposite direction of His voice. We don’t read and study His Word, listen to teachings about it, or pray nearly as much as we should. Then, we wonder why we don’t have any peace.

1Thessalonians 5:23-24(NLT) says, “23 Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. 24 God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.” This passage has a tremendous amount of heft for our understanding. Heavenly Father created us in three parts and fused us into oneness. He did this without any of our help. He created us in perfect harmony, all parts working together in perfect peace and unity with Him. But all of us have strayed away from His original intention of peace and harmony for our lives. Jesus Christ paid the price and purchased back our oneness with God. Because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross, God has given us the ultimate reboot. We are now blameless before Him, and our mission must be to remain this way, so we can participate with God through Christ. We do this by following Christ’s example.

In living through the example of Christ, we enjoy the connectedness of our spirit to his Spirit who abides within. They have a constant dialogue, Spirit to spirit, in which the Lord gives us instruction and guidance that will aid us in our every day lives and keep us on the path of peace. We don’t have to struggle to sit and abide in God’s peace, we simply have to be in His presence through our faith in His goodness. He tells us in Philippians 4:8(KJV), “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” If we will discipline our thoughts and confessions accordingly, the peace of God will continually flood our hearts. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Abiding in His Peace”, by Alexandra Copeland. Copyright© 2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.