I heard a song at lunch today that gave me a flashback of listening to that same song for the first time while driving down a road in North Dallas. It took place not long after I had become a Christian, and even though the song was a secular song its theme resonated with what I was feeling in my spirit at the time. The theme of the song is peacefulness, the peacefulness that you get from sailing, with just you and the wind and the waves.
The reason that song resonated with me so strongly at the time was that at 29 years old I was experiencing real peace for the first time in my life. I had an inner peace, a peace in my spirit, in the deepest part of me; and this was a peace that I had never experienced before; and it was so different, so unexpected, and so glorious, that I found myself basking in it as I traveled down the road that day....and then the song came on, and I knew I had a peace that was bigger and deeper than what the song could convey; and that this peace took me to a place the song could not; but listening to the song, then and now, reminds me of the reality of the peace I have in Christ.
This is a peace the world cannot know, but a peace for which the world continually searches. My wife and I occasionally watch International House Hunters on HGTV. What has struck us so many times while watching the program, is the common theme of the house hunters searching for peaceful surroundings and peaceful vistas, and looking at temporal peaceful settings to give them peace; and we know that the peace they are looking for will elude them until they look to Him who has made peace with them through the blood of His cross, for the peace which only He can give.
Secular man is without peace within himself because he is alienated from God, and is the very enemy of God. There is an old saying that the heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in God, and how true that is. Christ tells us in John that He has left us (believers) His peace. What was this peace He left to us? It was/is His peace with God. He had peace with God because He always did the will of he Father, and, therefore, because He always did what pleased the Father, He was in total harmony with God and had unity with God. This harmony and unity with the Father is now ours because we have been placed into Christ, the One who was in harmony with God.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ says, "Blessed are the peacemakers." And if we really think about it, we are to follow the example of the greatest peacemaker, the Lord Himself, as He made peace with us, His very enemies, and put to death the enmity between Him and us by nailing the indictments against us to the cross of Christ. You see, man can never be at spiritual peace until he experiences the forgiveness of his sins; and He cannot have forgiveness of his sins until He turns to the One to whom he has sinned against, and trusts in what He has done at the cross to provide for the forgiveness of the sins that stand between Him and man.
What about you today, my friend? Do you have peace...a real, abiding, peace of the soul...a peace that transcends circumstances...a peace that defies the logic of the world...a peace that is sure and steadfast...a peace that is marvelous and glorious? If not, look to the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ; and ask Him to give you His peace, the peace of salvation that comes to those who place their faith in Him to be all that He has promised to be.
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