Peace Found Me

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful. John 14:27 CSB

It seems that everywhere we turn today there are so many challenges to our personal peace.  Opportunities for disruption of our peace seem to confront us from our spouse, children, family, friends, work, world pandemic/health, social media, or our internal contemplation of life’s direction or destination.  Peace today just seems for most of us to be an elusive state of being that we pursue almost continually.

Ephesians 2:14 tells us that, He (Jesus) is our Peace (my parentheses, CSB), and Peace found me! Peace found me when I realized that God loved me before I knew or cared anything about Him, and pursued me to bring reconciliation and peace to my life just because I needed it.  I discovered that my peace was not a function of a lack of quiet, fear, challenges, conflicts, irritations, or anxiety but was actually founded on my belief and acceptance of Jesus Christ as the source and progenitor of true peace with God, humanity, and myself.  Through my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my personal savior, I experienced peace, love, acceptance, and forgiveness from God.

Peace flooded my heart when I understood that all these wonderful gifts were not based on my perfect or imperfect behavior but my acceptance of God’s love gift personified in Christ.  I didn’t have to do good things to be loved, accepted, and forgiven but I desired to do good and righteous things because I wanted to return the love and devotion I received from God.  All that God asked of me was to love Him and share what I have received from Him.  We can share God’s love acceptance and forgiveness with our spouse, children, friends, and ultimately the world because we have found and accepted Peace from God.

In our opening scripture, Jesus was speaking to His disciples before leaving Earth to return to heaven.  Jesus told us that He gave, then left peace with His disciples and includes us if we believe.  He instructed us to not let our hearts be troubled or fearful because we have His peace.  In Philippians 4:4-8, we are given directions for maintaining our peace:

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things (NKJV).

Allow God to give you peace today. (Adrian)