Families for God's Peace
2009-11-06 - Lourindi Nel
John 14:27 MSG I’m leaving you well and whole. That's my parting gift to you. Peace. I don't leave you the way you're used to being left--feeling abandoned, bereft. So don't be upset. Don't be distraught.
Peace according to the Bible
In the Bible the word ‘peace’, shalom, speaks of being in a position where nothing is missing from your life and nothing is broken in your life. The first time I heard this, I involuntarily wondered if this is even possible – to have a marriage where you feel complete, to look at your life and feel perfectly in sync, to carry no scars on your heart and to feel no resentment towards anybody... It did not only sound impossible, it sounded ridiculous! At that time, I did not know anybody in whom I could see nothing missing, nothing broken. All around me it seemed that even people who loved the Lord were out of balance, broken, poor, and even depressed. I myself looked at my life and relationships with acceptance of the fact that part of life is learning to accept that you have to cope with and learn to live with the little and the big imperfections in yourself and in the world around you.
Peace is possible!
All this changed for me one day when I went out for prayer. Somewhere in the course of the prayer that was prayed the Lord did something in my heart. None of my circumstances changed, on the outside everything continued as usual, but on the inside there was a shift! I felt peace, I had the ability to live and to let live. I was no longer afraid. I understood that peace manifested from the inside, outward. For the first time ever I realized that peace is not a concrete object or goal that can be achieved by doing or having the right things. It is an inward state that comes from knowing the Lord and allowing Him to do in you what He wants to do – to make you whole, nothing missing, nothing broken.
In pursuit of peace
1Pe 3:11 MSG Snub evil and cultivate good; run after peace for all you're worth.
If God is the source of peace, then peace comes through being connected to the source. This means that in our nation the solution to crime, brokenness, poverty and unrest does not lie in grand schemes or programs but in systematically connecting individuals, families, communities and ultimately a nation to the unfailing love of Christ that sets us free from fear and everything else that steals our peace.
Peace is the child of compassion and not the son of compromise – Sri Chinmoy
Only when those who have been granted peace, start being moved with compassion for those who do not know the source of peace, will the door to a nation of peace be opened. This month live uncompromisingly by speaking freely about what the Lord did for you, by loving freely and giving the ultimate gift – peace in a home, through the precious blood of the one who paid the price for our peace once and for all. Let it never be said of you that you settled for that which seemed easy because you were too afraid to make a stand for that which is right. Allow the Lord to establish your house as a house of peace and then go do it for someone else! May you be blessed this month with the peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace that does not come from your outer circumstances but through your intimate connection to the Lord. Shalom!
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