Finding Peace

Finding Peace

Jeff Lampl

I have learned three things about finding peace. . . .

First, I have learned that Jesus came to bring peace and if he is indeed ruling the earth right now, then He is currently working in each of us right now, probably not to simply give us peace, rather to offer it as a something that we can choose by deciding to believe Him. 

Notice this passage from Zechariah, which Jesus most certainly knew, and which he intentionally acted out on the day that we call palm Sunday.   Notice how these verses combine righteousness, victory, humility and peace.  When we Americans combine victory with peace we generally think of military build-up to keep us safe.   This passage pictures the Messiah achieving peace through weakness, actually disarming chariots, bows and warhorses.   This is peace not through strength, but through the humility of God.

"Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
    Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
    righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
¹⁰ I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
    and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
    and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
    His rule will extend from sea to sea
    and from the River^[b] to the ends of the earth."  Zechariah 9:9-10

I have come to believe and actually trust that Jesus humbly entered Jerusalem to die for the sin of the world.   This is huge.   It’s not that or anyone else I got right with God, but that through Jesus God got right with me.   It’s still a painfully difficult thing to believe, but in believing that I have astonished moments of being at peace, being at peace with God, the prerequisite for any other kind of real peace.

I have come to believe, based on Jesus’s resurrection and ascension that He is now ruling every split second and every square inch of planet earth, and he is ruling it in such a way, regardless of what I see, believe or understand, that every wrong is being made right and everything evil ever done is in the process of being undone.   My sin, failures, and incompetencies cannot prevent his doing this.   That truth gives me peace.

I have come to believe that that last three lines of verse 10 above are true, that they are a preview of the big message of the bible that this earth will be restored, that everything will be made right, and that everyone who is willing will find themselves living eternally in a redeemed world.  My favorite peace evoking thought about this is that this cannot not happen.

In short my peace comes from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“God cannot give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because it doesn’t exist”   C.S. Lewis

“Christ Himself is our peace”  Ephesians 2:14

“Lord, I will stop begging you to bring me peace supernaturally, instead I will practice believing;  believing that you are good, that you are making all things right even when, especially when I can’t see it.   Lord, I chose to believe and trust you as the Father in whom I have confidence as the Father of my children, as the Father who leads me beside still waters and restores my soul, as the powerful king who is undoing all wrongs and will finish the job.  Lord, today, at this moment I rest in that.  Amen”