“Then you will experience God’s peace, which passes anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
-Philippians 4:7 (NLT)
We’re going to look at peace. Peace is defined as having “a state of harmony between people or groups, which expresses wholeness, completeness, or tranquility in the soul that is unaffected by outward circumstances or pressures.” If you take this meaning and apply it to a person, you get “someone who has a calm, inner stability resulting in the ability to conduct himself peacefully, even in tough circumstances.”
Most of the time when peace is used, it means “to keep your cool”, but as we can tell, it means so much more than that! It means to be able to hold yourself together, no matter the craziness that the world tries to throw at you. To help us better understand peace, let’s look at some of the words around it.
The first word I want to look at is “passes”: so superior it surpasses the highest form of pressure. The second word I want to take a look at is “understand”, which simply means the mind. Now that we’ve got all these words, let’s read the verse with a fresh context: “Then you will experience God’s wholeness and completeness, which is so superior it surpasses the highest form of pressure in the mind. His wholeness and completeness will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
There’s one more part of this verse that we haven’t covered yet. It’s the last part, “as you live in Christ Jesus.” This says that in order to access and use His peace you have to live in Him. You will never experience this supernatural peace apart from Christ. The peace that keeps you calm and gives you inner stability, and is superior to all kinds of pressure is only available if you live in Christ Jesus. In Romans 8:11, “The Spirit of God, who raised Christ from the dead, lives in you . . . ” Since Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and Jesus is in you, that means YOU have the same peaceable Spirit that Jesus does! It operates the same way for you as it did for Him; you just have to make the choice to use it, and not let it sit idly by, collecting dust.
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Now that we know about this peace, let’s apply it. Hebrews 13:20-21 says, “Now may the God of peace, who brought up Jesus from the dead, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will . . . ” That peace is available whenever you need it! It’s there when you want to react in a not-so loving way. It’s there when someone tries to pick a fight with you. It’s even there when you’re confused about something. Remember: it is stronger than any and all outward forces of pressure. Let the peace of God, found only in Christ control you. With that being said, read 2 Thessalonians 3:16, “Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.”
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“Lord, I thank You for the peace that You have provided for me through Your Son, Jesus. I choose to walk in Your peace, the peace that surpasses all the pressures of the day. I choose to let this peace dominate my life; to keep me calm in tough circumstances, and to respond in perfect tranquility. In Jesus’ name, amen.”