Missing Peace

The Missing Peace

John {14:27}

Peace I leave with you
my peace I give unto you
not as the world giveth,
give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled
neither let it be afraid.

There's a restlessness inside every human being, inherited at birth. Maybe the restlessness in you takes the form of a tiny feeling that something isn't quite right. Something in life just isn't how it should be. There has to be something more. Even if all our needs are taken care of we want something more. People call us selfish for wanting more when we have our basic human needs met. Those without those needs fulfilled long to be like we are and believe that if only they had what we had they'd finally be happy- but how can they be happy when they don't have the basic needs? It's not surprising when a poor man suddenly becomes a rich man and he finds out after a short while of celebration that in fact that real happiness is still missing.

Missing peace is what it really is and it can be found in all of us. We can call it something else, call it our lot in life not to be content. We can say that if only we had this differently then peace an happiness would be ours. What we're caught up in is a lie. There are nothing but temporary glimpses of peace. Temporary glimpses of what a happy life should be and even a very poor person can have these glimpses.

Truly, irregardless of circumstances we are touched by peace at various moments in our lives.

Those tiny moments allow us to realize that there is really something more to be had.

Unfortunately, most of us look for the something in temporal ways. We seek more money to take more vacations, or better quality vacations. We seek a new person to bring us that spark. We seek the latest toy on the market. We strive to obtain something, putting all our efforts into that something and when it is ours we have to start over again striving for something else, something newer, better.

A person content with their life we say is a good thing, but that contentment could have been obtained by resignation- giving up on things, settling for what you have because it's too much effort to strive for more. The striving becomes tiresome and so a 'happy' resignation settles in. And yet there is still...

...the missing peace.

You see, I believe that when we were created in God's image, by God Himself, mankind was made with a necessary connection with the Creator. We were made by God, for God and not for any other reason.

You ever see a gorgeous wedding cake? Maybe in a picture, or in a movie, if not in real life? If you attempted to make that same wedding cake it's only when you get started and begin the process do you realize just what sort of effort and skill it takes to create such a thing.

The same principle holds to seeing a sculpture, a painting, a building, or a complex mathematical formula, inside a computer, a television set, a telephone... things are possible and have been made possible through effort, through talent and often we don't realize the extent of such effort and talent until we try to do create for ourselves what has been created for us.

Sometimes people who imitate the art of others can get it exactly the same- they can counterfeit the piece of art but that's rare. Often people will try and come close but fall short of the same glory of the piece.

In some things it's impossible to duplicate them and we call them one of a kind.

We say humans are one of a kind. Even identical twins have their differences.

We are each unique.

God made us to be this way, different from one another, each of us having within us something amazing and wonderful and yet every single one of us are missing peace.

We are.

This peace that Jesus leaves with us, this peace that Jesus gives to us is in fact that missing peace and we can't get it except through Him. It's a peace unlike anything we can manufacture on our own. It's a peace that in truth connects us back to God, a peace we forfieted in the garden when we separated ourselves from God.

Titus {2:14} Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

A peculiar people.

We become a peculiar people when we accept the peace offered to us by Jesus. How could we not be peculiar when we have imperfectly (and yet we have) reached out to accept the hand offered to us, reached out to accept the hope Jesus offers us in Him. The hope of reconnecting with God, of bridging the gap created by sin, or becoming once again as God intended. We've been given the missing peace.

Satan doesn't want any of us having the missing peace. He doesn't want any of us believing we can ever connect with God again. If we do believe it He then wants to make our lives so miserable that we turn away. It's not the peace of the world Jesus offers us. If we accept Jesus and we are given the comforter, we all too often mistake the peace offered to us as worldly peace, when it's very far from that.

John {14:27}

Peace I leave with you
my peace I give unto you
not as the world giveth,
give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled
neither let it be afraid.

John {16:33}

These things I have spoken unto you
that in me ye might have peace.
In the world ye shall have tribulation
but be of good cheer
I have overcome the world.

How can you have good cheer when you are going through tribulation?

It's having hope.

Hope that no matter what we suffer- and we will suffer - that there is hope in Jesus.

We can't hope to have worldly peace, but a peace that transcends what the world offers, a peace that can ease our hearts, our worries so that we're not all caught up in them.

There is a God connection we all were supposed to have and yet sin separates us from God.

Man disobeyed God's command and as a result they were separated from God. Changes took place when that separation happened, changes we can only imagine as we know that man goes from being unashamed of his own nakedness to being ashamed. Changes, instant changes, instant separation from being the creature God intended man to be and...it is only our arrogance, our pride which cries out and says it was a good thing that we know good and evil- God shouldn't have kept that tree of knowledge from us in the first place. God did so for a reason and obviously a very good reason when we look at the result of disobeying Him. Our own sin, our own pride and as long as we believe that it was a good thing to disobey God, how can we ever be reunited with Him?

Our only hope is Jesus.

Missing peace.

We can fill our lives we all sorts of things and yet the missing peace is our connection to God and we are offered that connection, that reuniting with God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

No, it doesn't mean you'll be given worldly peace, that your life will be all sunshine and roses, happiness and sweetness, it won't be.

The Missing Peace - not Worldly Peace.

Peace that reunites in Spirit and holds within it the future promise of a peace that reunites in all ways, physical and spiritual in Jesus.

May God bless us all and help us to hold fast to the missing peace found in Jesus through the Holy Spirit so we may be reunited with God now and forever, our hope is in Him.

Amen.


“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”- James 1:12