Peace Beyond Understanding

  1. Hope is the vaccine for sadness. Peace is the antidote to fear.
  2. Peace results not the absence of conflict but from the presence of God who provides comfort and confidence, even and especially in challenging times (Phil. 4:6-7).
    • Where is your mind focused? Your thinking determines your feelings and the direction of your life.
    • Keep your mind focused on the Lord’s presence within and you will stay in perfect peace. “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” (Isaiah 26:3, NIV84) “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” (Psalm 91:1, NIV84)
    • LIsten to the LORD and receive His promise of peace. Turning or returning to foolish behavior and ungodly lifestyle choices results in frustration and fear. “I will listen to what God the Lord will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints— but let them not return to folly.” (Psalm 85:8, NIV84)
  3. One day Jesus will return to reign over a renewed earth and establish universal peace (Isa. 11).
  4. Until Christ returns children of God are called to be peacemakers (Matt. 5:9)
  5. Stand for justice and truth, but speak with love (Matt. 5:6, Eph. 4:15).
    “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15, NIV)
  6. Share the Good News with everyone who will pay attention to you (2 Cor. 5:17-21)
    “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:17–21, NIV84)
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