Perfect Peace

If you were to ask different people the meaning of peace, quite likely you’ll get different answers. The Bible has much to say about peace. 

The Scripture says “The LORD is Peace” (Judges 6:24). This means God Himself is the source of peace. And God’s peace transcends all human understanding of peace. Philippians 4:6,7 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, 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 your minds in Christ Jesus” Surpasses means “goes beyond.”

Prayer is the greatest “stress reliever.” Nothing even comes close. The text says “the peace of God . . .will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” When you pray, you commit the situation to God and leave the consequences entirely to Him. Then and only then will you experience the “peace of God.” God is indeed most trustworthy.

The “peace of God” is heartfelt inward peace, the nature of which the world knows nothing about and no mortal being can fully grasp or explain it. This peace is experienced when we commit our cares, concerns, and anxieties to God “by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving” (Phil. 4:6). Note, the request is to be made with thanksgiving. This means we can rest assured that God will intervene, and the request will be granted.

There is also another kind of peace that the Scriptures tell us about. And this is “peace with God.” The Scripture says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

Ever since sin came into the world through the first man Adam, the sinful mind of man has been hostile to Almighty God because it is controlled by the sinful nature man was born with. Satan has prevented those who know not Jesus Christ from coming to a saving knowledge of the truth and trust Christ as their personal Savior. 

The Bible says, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

When an individual accepts Jesus Christ as Savior, he now has, and enjoys peace with God. 

This peace only comes through the redemptive work of Christ on the Cross, which the believer enters into by faith. 

Sin had separated everyone from God. Therefore, God in mercy and grace provided the Lord Jesus Christ to become our peace with Himself, “making peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). Jesus made peace where no peace previously existed prior to His death on the Cross.

The Bible teaches that Christ Himself is the believer’s peace so as to reconcile us to God. Let’s be clear, sinful man is to be reconciled to God and not God reconciled to sinful man. 

Ephesians 2:14-17 “For he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”

Jesus Christ  in His death has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility that existed between ourselves and God, the believer is now reconciled to God through Christ’s work on the Cross.

In each of his letters to the various Churches, the apostle Paul includes the words “peace from God” in his salutations. He writes: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” In so doing, Paul is making it well known the source of true peace is from the Lord, and not from mankind.

The Lord Jesus in comforting His disciples and announcing His coming for them said: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). Note what Jesus said, “peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” Only the Lord Jesus can give divine peace, because He and He alone procured it for us with His own precious blood that he shed on the Cross.

There is absolutely no comparison between the peace Jesus gives and so called peace offered by the world’s system. If we are to enjoy the peace Jesus imparts to us, we must not let our hearts be troubled, nor let them be afraid. This divine peace removes all troubles and fears.

Isaiah 26:3,4 says “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD God is an everlasting rock” There seems to be a precondition for perfect peace as set forth in this text. And that is a ‘mind that is stayed on the Lord Himself.’ 

The question then is, how do we keep our minds stayed on the Lord? Our minds cannot be stayed on anything that has no spiritual or heavenly value. Christians are in the world but not of the world. We must spend time with the Lord and His word, and in prayer daily thus taking time to be holy, being set apart for God. 

“Set your minds on things that are above not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:2,3). The devil will do his utmost to distract us from following the Lord. Therefore, we must “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).