WHAT IS PEACE?
John 14:27, Amplified Bible
Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]
Peace is so much more than the absence of turmoil. The Hebrew word SHALOM indicates far more than absence of turmoil. In essence, it means: Completeness, wholeness, with nothing missing out of your life and nothing broken in your life. Most of us cannot say that exists in our lives. There is brokenness all over the place for us—-broken relationships, broken bodies, broken finances. My question to us is this: Why is it that we who have accepted Jesus as our Savior have the same brokenness dictating our lives as the world has? What is the problem with us? What is going on?
I’ll tell you what the answer is: We know Jesus as our Savior but we do not know Him as our Prince of Peace. We are living in, and surrounded by, a world full of brokenness, a world of darkness and sin and sickness and poverty and broken relationships. Instead of pondering and submitting to that brokenness, we need to be submitting to the Peace of God, to His SHALOM, His wholeness. We as God’s children are living in the Kingdom of God while we are here on this earth. We are to be living in His presence, the One Who is the Prince of Peace, the Prince of Wholeness. And we have been giving more attention to the brokenness of the world than the wholeness of Jesus. We have been allowing the world and its circumstances around us to determine the way we feel about our lives. Our focus has been on what is wrong rather than what is right with Jesus. We are looking with our physical eyes at the mess and listening to others describe the mess to us.
When we take on the vision of Jesus as our Prince of Peace, we see wholeness in the middle of the mess and have confidence in Him to bring completeness out of chaos, wholeness out of brokenness, deliverance out of bondage, safety out of harm, and sweetness out of destruction. He is the One Who makes the desert bloom like the rose. He is the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Valley. He takes our stinking circumstances and brings a sweet-smelling savor to make our world brighter when the one around us is dark.
It is all about our focus. Where is our attention being drawn? That which is given priority on the inside of us will determine the direction of our prayer life. We are either praying from a place of turmoil or a place of peace. Turmoil brings the world’s results. Peace brings God’s results. Let us determine to learn to walk in God’s peace. It is time we give the world an alternative to their destruction direction. Instead of their dictating our destiny, let us present to them by our words and actions a better way, a better plan, one which is a pathway of freedom. It is the way of PEACE.
Lest you think that I am presenting a “lay me down rug” mentality, do not be mistaken. God is a protector of His children. His peace is more powerful than anything the enemy can bring against us. Anything of God is His pure power. When we learn that, we have nothing to fear. His peace overrides anything brought against us. Remember that no weapon formed against us prospers, is successful.