A Gift for You
Jesus has given us a gift- the gift of peace. This is what He said as He left us this
gift. “My peace I leave you: my peace I
now give you. Not as the world gives do
I give this to you. Do not let your
hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)
Again and again throughout the
Bible we find many scriptures that promise us that this special peace is ours, and
that God has us covered. We are not to be afraid or to worry – just trust God.
When I first read Jesus’ words promising this gift of peace
to believers, I hoped that a bundle of peace would just drop on top of me and I
would automatically feel calm, cool and collected. But that didn’t happen! Even though trusting in God has brought me a
lot of peace, I still worry about many things. I want to trust God all the time
and not just part of the time, but when things go wrong I still react with fear.
I believe, Lord help my unbelief. Perhaps
you are like me and don’t enjoy all of God’s peace all of the time. And being
anxious and fearful even part of the time is miserable enough to make us want
to learn to trust God and enjoy His peace all the time!
So my question is, what do we need to do to stop being
anxious and fearful? How can we trust
God all of the time instead of just part of the time? What is our part? Scripture says to “Seek and we shall find” (Matthew
7:7) so we can search the Scriptures and ask God for answers.
We read in Exodus 33:12-14 that Moses was worried and
fearful about how he would be able to do the job that God had commanded him to
do. God had asked Moses to lead the
children of Israel Egypt
God did not answer his many questions. The fact that God was
with Moses was all that he needed. And
what was true for Moses is also true for us. As much as we would like to know
all the answers to our problems and how everything will turn out, all we really
need to know is that God’s Presence will be with us wherever He sends us.(Isaiah
41:10) We keep our eyes on Him and not
on our troubles. If things don’t work
out the way we want, we have to stay calm and trust Him to show us what to
do. Gods’ timetable and His ways are not
ours. In the end God will work everything out for good. (Romans 8:28)
If we learn to lean on God and remember that He is always
with us, we will have peace. And if we
come to Jesus with our problems we will find rest. Jesus asks us to come to Him. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are
heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I
am gentle and humble and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28-29) And Isaiah 41:10 says: “Fear not for I am with
you, be not dismayed for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you, with the
right hand of my righteousness.” So we will enjoy our gift of peace more when
we learn to lean on God and develop a childlike attitude of faith. Rest in the arms of the Lord and let Him
manage your life.
Psalm 63:7 reads:
“For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I
rejoice.” Joyce Meyer writes about being
under the shadow of Gods’ wings in her book “Be Anxious for Nothing.” She says that a shadow is a shade, a protection
from the heat or the sun. The shadow also has borders around it between the light
and the shadow. We are either in the
shadow of something or we are not.
She continues that as long as we choose to remain under the
shadow of God’s wings, we will be comfortable and protected. But we can choose
to walk out from under those wings. When we drive down the highway, as long as
we stay within the dividing lines between lanes and obey the signposts along
the road, we are in much less danger of being involved in a accident. In the spiritual realm, the “lines and signs”
that keep us on the way of the Lord and out of danger are obedience and trust
in God. As long as we place our trust and confidence in the Lord and try to obey
Him, He will keep us under the shadow of His wings.
Another thing we need to do in order to enjoy a peaceful
life is to learn some self control. It’s
impossible to have a peaceful life (the good life) when we don’t control our
emotions. One of the gifts of the Spirit is self control. Galatians 5:22-23 reads: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
…” See, it’s in there as one of the
helps (talents) that we receive when we believe in Jesus. So God has already
given us help (a talent) in managing our emotions. It may be difficult but we need to learn to
use what we already have and ask God for more help if needed.
You may be saying; “Wait a minute! When I am upset I can’t control my
emotions!” I have a difficult time
controlling mine too. But scripture says
that we can! “By your steadfastness and
patient endurance you shall win the true life of your souls.”(Luke 21:19) And the King James Version of this verse
reads, “In your patience, possess ye your souls.” This scripture is saying that with patience
we can “possess our souls” and not panic and not fly into a rage. We can ask God to help us win this battle and
He will be there with His help and strength.
Scripture also says: “Be anxious in nothing, but in
everything by prayer and supplication make your requests known to God, and the
peace of God which passes understanding will keep your heart and mind in Christ
Jesus.”(Phil.4:6) This scripture is telling us that whenever a problem comes up
not to worry but instead to pray. To always
replace anxiety with prayer. “Cast all
your care on Him, for He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7)
We also lose our precious peace when we get angry. Scripture
says: “When angry, do not sin: do not let your anger last until the sun goes
down. Leave no foothold for the
devil.” (Ephesians 4:26-27) One of the ways that we lose the peace that
Jesus gave us is by not forgiving people who have offended us or angered
us. We will get angry but we are told
not to sin when we do. We are not to let
the sun go down on our anger – in other words we are not to stay angry and hold
resentments. We are to quickly forgive
and move on.
We are to go to the one who made us angry (or who we made
angry) and do what we can to make things right.
If we are unable to do that we are to forgive them in our hearts and
never hold a grudge. Never gossip about them to others or harm their
reputations. God will be there to help
us forgive even if we have to keep coming back to Him for help.
Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to “forgive
us our sins as we forgive others of their sins” (Matthew 6:9) Since
God has forgiven us of our sins He commands us His children to forgive
also. We will never have the gift of
peace in our lives if we hold onto unforgiveness. In fact holding on to unforgiveness will make
us miserable. Do not give the devil a
foothold by holding onto unforgiveness.
We have been given this wonderful gift – the gift of
peace. But part of our peace gift may
still be wrapped up and un-opened. Most
of us are only enjoying part of our peace part of the time. We learn that it may take time and practice
to trade our anxieties for prayer. And
it may take patience and endurance (Luke 21:19) to gradually develop a
childlike attitude of faith in God. It
may take time to learn to rest in the arms of the Lord. And prayer and effort to learn to forgive.
Let’s be patient with
ourselves as we keep on learning to use our gift. Let’s cast all our cares on
God and turn our back to our old worrying ways. We have been given this
marvelous gift of peace - so let’s not let it go to waste. If we had been given a million dollars we
wouldn’t leave it sitting on the shelf.
And our gift of peace is worth much more than a million dollars. So let’s start enjoying what we have!
Some of these ideas were taken from Joyce Meyers’ book, “Be
Anxious for Nothing.”
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