“Peace I leave with you,
My peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give to you.
Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid.”
(John 14:27)
Much has been written about PEACE
Peace is Shalom (In Hebrew)
But Jesus said:
“not as the world gives do I give to you.”
In our churches we regularly pray for PEACE
World peace
Peace between people and nations
And it is so easy for us to think in this way
It SEEMS so good
A natural thing to do
To pray for and seek for PEACE
AND IT IS
But this is NOT what Jesus is talking about
At His birth
The angels came declaring:
“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace,
goodwill toward men!”
(Luke 2:14)
The “peace” is between God and us
Eventhough Jesus had just been born…
Eventhough He is here talking to His Disciples…
God proclaims what WILL be…
Between Himself and mankind
It’s a declaration of what Jesus
Is about to do
On the cross
Rising again
Ascending into Heaven
Placing His blood on the mercy seat
And sitting on the Father’s right hand side
God is no longer angry with us
He is at PEACE with us
We have no longer any need to be afraid of God
He’s not even in a bad mood
He is a GOOD God
We find this difficult to understand…
The way that God calls something
As being already done, completed
Before it is…
He’s sees things the way they are going to be
And talks about them NOW
As if they had already happened
This is how we LIVE in PEACE
While in the middle of trouble and heartache
Because we are looking ahead
To how things WILL be
For that is God’s way
And THAT requires FAITH
In a similar way
God has said that by His stripes we are healed
(Isaiah 53:5, 1 Peter 2:24)
Eventhough our bodies
May be telling us something different
We believe what God says
And declare ourselves as being well, whole…
So Jesus LEAVES His PEACE with the Disciples
For He does not give as the world gives
And He concludes with these words:
“Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid.”
DARE to BELIEVE Jesus
LIVE in His PEACE
And be NOT AFRAID
This is TRUE for all of us