One of the common threads I get from people who call me or write to me is their sense of losing their peace. Whether it’s the latest news, recent events in their life or internal struggles they face, their sense of peace is being threatened.
Throughout my journey of overcoming anxiety, panic attacks and OCD battles, walking with the peace of God is a treasured experience. When you’ve gone through long and unending seasons of torment, restlessness or painful stress, any level of peace that you can experience is heavenly.
Every day of my life, I thank God from the bottom of my heart for His peace, because I know first hand what its like to feel a million miles away from peace.
The Struggle Over Internal Peace
Modern day people can fake it well, but deep down, there is a struggle to live in the calm and comfort of God’s never-changing peace. Most people just live super busy lives to cover over the reality that deep down inside, they lack peace.
In the days and months ahead, living in the peace of God is going to be more important than ever. Yet it seems to be missing from so many people’s lives. So much so, that the storms of life are wiping them out, many times shipwrecking their faith and overcoming.
The Power of God’s Peace
You can be fully engaged in whatever is happening in your life, yet carry the peace of God that keeps you from being wiped out. The true peace of God is supernaturally powerful, yet at times mysterious, because it is not based on circumstances. In fact, God’s peace rises us above circumstances, so that we may see situations with His perspective.
If our peace is stolen, so is our perspective. Therefore, every thought and decision gets lost in stress, pressure, discouragement and doom if we don’t maintain a life of peace within.
The War Over Your Peace
It can be easy to lose your peace, not because God’s peace is weak, but because there is a high level war over you walking in that peace.
When I do session work or conduct training programs, most of the battles that people have are all threatening their sense of internal peace. In fact, most people do not deal with their lack of peace until they are at Defcon levels. The unaddressed issues of the heart slowly keep stealing their sense of internal peace until they can’t take it anymore.
Life doesn’t have to steal your peace. The enemy doesn’t have to steal your peace. We can be at the greatest level of peace sometimes in the most challenging of circumstances.
What is the Peace of God?
First off, we can’t talk about living with the peace of God if we have not made peace with God. The cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ makes it possible for us to live at peace with God. This is the first dimension of walking in peace, which brings about relational reconciliation between us and God.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Romans 5:1 (NKJV)
There is a second dimension of peace, as children of God, we learn to walk with a sense of peace in a dark world, knowing that there is nothing to fear and nothing to be worried about. The domain of God is always at peace.
As believers, the peace of God allows us to be at rest within ourselves, even in the most difficult of circumstances. It doesn’t mean we won’t struggle or have difficult seasons, but there is a peace we can return to at all times. The more we learn to live in that peace, the stronger it becomes in our lives.
Influencing the Atmosphere
The peace of God operating within us allows us to live as thermostats, where we have authority to set the emotional temperature in our lives. Most people live as thermostats, where they only read the temperature of life and react to it. Overcomers know how to set the temperature, no matter what is going on. Peace sets the atmosphere in our hearts and the mood for the day. It cultivates our posture for how we deal with our circumstances.
Protecting Our Hearts and Minds
The importance of the peace of God cannot be understated, for its mission is to watch over your heart and guard it.
the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7 NKJV)
The peace of God is like a bouncer, standing at the door of your heart, checking every thought and imagination that seeks to sneak in with fake IDs. It checks the identity of everything that seeks to enter, kicking out all invaders that are on assignment to steal your peace.
Why is this so important? Because if your peace is stolen, it trickles down into every aspect of your day and life.
But this peace is not just a mental assent or a list of arguments. Sometimes the enemy can get an upper hand in your mind, pointing to how difficult situations may be in your life. This is where the peace of God works in nuclear power, because it surpasses understanding.
the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7 NKJV)
The peace of God says, “I know in human reasoning, I should be freaking out, but I am not. I don’t understand why, but I have peace.”
Not Condemnation, But an Invitation
But don’t beat yourself up if you are not living in that. The areas where we lack peace are simply areas that God wants to walk with us through, leading into places of healing, restoration and wholeness.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul . . . Psalms 23:2-3 (NKJV)
See your lack of peace as a place where God is inviting you into a journey of learning what it means to personally experience His deep and powerful peace.
Living in Peace is Not Avoidance
For too many, living in the peace of God they think just means checking out, so what they do is they live in denial. They avoid problems and circumstances because so much of our life is spent avoiding pain and just running to comfort. We just want to get out of discomfort as quickly as possible. That’s not the peace of God.
The peace of God is able to face obstacles head-on while carrying a power and authority within us that is not taken out by the threat those situations. Granted, each of us will be stretched and challenged by situations to grow in what it means to live in peace, but we cannot find true peace by living in denial.
People who live in the powerful, dynamic peace of God are not avoiders. You have all seen those people who say, “I carry peace and I’m walking in peace,” but it’s just baloney, because they’re living in massive denial. Whenever someone brings up a problem, they change the subject or cover their ears.
It’s easy to pretend a problem isn’t there. Facing the issues of your life while learning to cultivate the peace of God is where the real growth resides.
Walking With Authoritative Peace
You can tell if someone carries authoritative peace if you’re able to talk about any subject with them and they’re able to fully engage, have empathy, but still maintain a peace when talking through the issues.
Jesus was able to go to a funeral of a dearly-loved friend and weep in front of the tomb, while then moments later proclaim, “Lazarus, come forth.” That’s the power of peace that’s available.
Our Lord was able to sleep in a storm in a boat while the waves were crashing, the storm was billowing, and the disciples were freaking out. His internal peace outweighed the massive storm they were in.
Peace for the Days Ahead
I believe in the days we are living in, it is going to be critical that the people of God really connect to true peace and get strengthened in peace each day. The more difficult circumstances get, the more your peace gets stronger.
Peace is your birthright. God has given it to you. In fact, in Exodus 14, the Bible says that “The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace.” There is a dimension of me keeping my peace and allowing God to have a divine work in my heart and in my circumstances and situations. It’s the rest of God, living in his rest so that I’m not taken out by circumstances.
Comfort vs Transformation
It doesn’t mean that the steps you take are going to just magically have peace. Sometimes believers make the mistake of … They say, “Well, I just got to follow the peace.” I don’t know that that’s always accurate, because many times God leads us into very uncomfortable territories.
I find God is stretching me every single day. He’s never allowing me to go to just the place of cozy, lazy, comfortable passivity. He’s calling me to go into a deeper place of strengthening my faith and being able to understand the power of what I can carry over circumstances.
God’s number-one priority is not your comfort, but your maturity and transformation. That’s what a Father does, grow up His children. In that process, He wants to strengthen and develop the peace that you carry.
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