TUESDAY January 7th
Isaiah 26:3-4
‘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.’
The different verses that we read yesterday, all say something about peace, and if I were to sum them up quickly, they are all concerning the peace of God, the peace that comes from God and it is peace that is all wrapped up in the Son of God. It is peace that is only found through having a right relationship with God that comes through the Lord Jesus Christ.
See it is a peace that cannot be found anywhere else, definitely not through the United Nations, it is different and far superior to any effort of peace that can be found in this world, it is peace that comes through the one who is called the Prince of Peace, and initially brought to us at the Cross, for as Paul reminds us in Ephesians chapter two that Jesus came and as verse 17 says
‘He came and preached peace to you that were far off (that is to the Gentile) and to those who were near (that is to the Jew).
And how was this peace preached or declared? At the Cross, for verses 13-16 says
‘But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 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.’
We all need to know what it is to have peace with God – the sin that had separated us needed to be taken away, the barrier removed, the hostility removed, the tension removed, and it has happened for us who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and it can happen to who read this today who have yet not come to accept Jesus as Saviour. For without Jesus as your Saviour you cannot and do not have peace with God.
But we also need to know what it is to have peace from God, for although the relationship between us and God has been restored, we still live in a troubled world, we all go through life experiences that can cause us to be troubled, disturbed, anxious and fearful, yet the Prince of Peace brings to us, offers to us his peace as we make the journey on earth through to our eventual arrival in heaven.
to be continued . . .