Peace, Be Still

Greetings and exhortations in Christ, dear Beloved Family! 

I want to remind you as you watch the very fabric of worldly logic and reality continually unfold before you, to let not your heart be troubled. Evil people do evil things, sinners sin, and tyrants try to rule over good people, like you and me. But, the resistance is growing daily and the chief tyrant, satan, is under our feet and will be tortured very, very soon.

Romans 16:20
The God of peace will soon crush satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Notice the title, the nature, of the One doing the crushing… it is, “The God of peace.” I can honestly tell you that most believers do not value, or even understand the value of the peace of God being required in our lives. Note that I use the word, “required,” and not just beneficial. To the degree that we operate in the peace of God is the amount of power, authority, and victory that we manifest in our daily lives. The peace of God is much different than the lesser version of peace that the world speaks of incessantly in an attempt to get folks to play nice together. Check this out:

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Jesus tells us here that His peace has the ability to:

1. Keep your heart from being, “troubled.” This word is defined as, “put in motion (to agitate back-and-forth, shake to-and-fro); (figuratively) to set in motion what needs to remain still (at ease); to “trouble” (“agitate”), causing inner perplexity (emotional agitation) from getting too stirred up inside (“upset”).“
2. Keep your heart from being affected by the enemy’s attempted usage of fear. We actually have a term for that in today’s world that, very effectively, describes our foe: “terrorist.” It fits him perfectly, because terrorists can ONLY rule through terror. Terror only works when you’re afraid.

If we were to all be open and transparent, we would admit that nearly every bad decision, every effective temptation, and every sin in our life has some attachment to these two areas of a, “troubled,” heart or a, “fear,” affected heart. Just stop and think for a moment at the last error in judgement you made, and likely you will see that it came from either fear or agitation working inside. When our hearts are troubled or fearful, we are not operating in the peace of God. The peace of God is of such enormous value that the very last message Jesus ever ministered… and one of the longest… and one of the most intimate… and one of the most revelatory… and one of the most important… was the message that starts in John 13 and basically does not end until His arrest in John 18. These chapters are so personally impacting and valuable to me in my own spiritual life and growth that they are, by far, some of the most important to me in all of scripture. Nearly everything I meditate and minister somehow or in some way has a connection back to some part of that divine message from my Lord.

The context is that these were the words that Jesus spoke, to His most intimate disciples, in the most tenuous time of His entire earthly life and ministry. This discourse stretches from the Last Supper until His illegal arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane where His soul was tortured and He sweat out great drops of blood of resistance in the fight for the salvation of mankind. That is the love of God in action, dear Beloved!

Hopefully, you can see that there is a reason that I have such gravitation to these chapters and words, and I have inspired you towards them also. But, what I want to highlight is, the very last verse of John 16 that is a type of summation that our Lord gives to illustrate purpose.

John 16:33
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

I will attempt to restrain myself here, because I could go for hours on these annotated truths. Maybe I will just fire off some bullet points for y’all and then just pray that you meditate on each of them to give God the opportunity to do radical things in your heart and life like He has done in mine and so many others. I deeply hope that this way of intended exhortation is effective because these few points I will offer you are some of the most precious things that have ever been offered to mankind from the King and His Kingdom.

• All of the teaching and truths in these three chapters are that we, “might have peace.” This was literally going to be one of the worst times the disciples were ever going to face. Jesus being arrested… beaten… tortured… and dying in front of them. Jesus was preparing them by charging them to not allow their peace to be shaken.
• This peace is, “IN,” Him. Not just from Him or about Him… but IN Him. It was and is the most unique type of peace known to mankind because it is divine in origin and divine in application. It is not a feeling, it is a force.
• “In the world ye SHALL have tribulation”… this sounds like a terrible promise, but it is true none-the-less. Knowing this, we are empowered to know what realm we could and should be operating in. The world authors the tribulation, not God. But, God has graciously equipped us with knowledge to know and defeat the tactics of the world.
• “Be of good cheer.” This is a choice we all have available to us under any circumstance, temptation, or tribulation. It is simply a choice to embrace or reject what we all personally have the right and liberty to enact. I look at this statement as a command from my Lord and in such, give it the proper honor, submission, and obedience it requires.
• “I have overcome the world.” This is true AND a statement of faith at the same time. There were still things Jesus needed to do and accomplish for this statement to be fully realized, but there were also many things that were finished at this point as well. Same with you and me: there are things that are FINISHED and things that we need to FINISH, but both of them are done from a place of victory through peace.

Tribulations exist because there is a battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil. When we operate in faith, God is able to grant us such victory that ends with us actually better off because of the battle. It’s just like when an army goes to war. If they win, they gain spoils. But, if they embrace their enemy because of the spoils they were expecting to receive, they will be killed instead of blessed. First, you have to fight and win the war, then, and only then, will the spoils be available. The enemy doesn’t come to be a blessing, but a blessing can be obtained from the enemy if we are victorious.

If, “tribulation,” was what perfected us, then most Christians would have been perfected long ago and those who experienced the greatest problems would be the greatest Christians. However, that’s not the way it is. God’s Word is given to us to make us perfect, and thoroughly furnished unto every good work (2 Tim. 3:17). God’s Word does not need to be supplemented with problems to accomplish its work. This is why Jesus said, “these things I have spoken to you”…

Beloved, let the words and peace of God found IN Jesus be more solid and foundational to your life today than any outside force, feeling, or fight. The Lord of Hosts, Jesus, has taken the crown of victory by conquest and we need to live in His victory today!

I love you deeply!
Steve