Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.

Psalms 119:165, ESV

 

Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.

I Peter 5:14, KJV

 

We have just finished the holiday of Thanksgiving in America. It is a wonderful day to remember just how much God has blessed us. This is good and it is the right thing to do.

 

Some people, however, were just not very thankful. Perhaps it was because of some personal struggle that they were going through at the time, perhaps it was because they simply felt that they didn't have anything to be thankful for. Maybe the biggest source of dissatisfaction is that many people, no matter how much they are endowed with the riches of this life, is they have no peace. This is confusing for some because they think if they have the physical things everyone wants then peace will follow.

 

But this kind of thinking is all wrong. Peace does not come from what we have, it comes from being in Christ. It is a fruit of the Spirit:

 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace...

Galatians 5:22, NASB

 

Do we see? You have to be in Christ in order to have peace. God inspired Isaiah to write on two separate occasions that there is no peace for the wicked, (Isaiah 48:22 & 57:21). What was true under the Old Covenant is equally true under the New Covenant, and under this new covenant in which we live, we have to be in Christ to have peace. We are told that when people became Christians by obeying the Gospel in Acts 2:38 that they received the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

 

Since many people have never obeyed the Gospel by believing in Christ, repenting of their sins, being baptized into Christ, calling on His name (confession of their belief that Jesus is Lord, the Son of God), they have never become Christians, and they are still lost in their sins! How could anyone who is lost have peace? Since peace is a fruit of the Spirit, those who are not in Christ can no more have this fruit of the spirit than could an oak tree produce the fruit of an apple.

 

The reason for bringing this up is to try and help explain why so many people who are blessed with worldly goods (and perhaps are even thankful for these physical things) still do not have peace - they cannot! Why not? Because peace is only for those who are "in Christ". This means that we not only have to have been placed in Christ, as all are, by God when we obey the Gospel, but that we have also remained "in Christ" by walking according to His word in the light. But, for all who are in Christ, peace is theirs in abundance. 

 

This is truly a great gift of God for which we are eternally grateful!

 

Do you have peace?