Jesus’ Very Own Peace… Yours

It’s audio devo day! Do you need real, lasting peace? Peace that won’t evaporate when storms blow in? This is exactly what Jesus has for you. Listen in to this week’s episode and allow Him to minister to you profound peace that will encompass and protect your heart.

(Encouraged by this? Know someone else that needs to hear this today? You can either share today’s blog link with them, or look up my Feeding on Jesus podcast for sharing and subscribing. You’ll find it at these links on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and most other podcast platforms, with episodes identical to these audio devos!)

*******************************

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27, NKJV).

I invite you to sit there for a moment and soak in these words. Jesus’ peace is a gift, a gift that He wants you to have right now. As He offers it to you, He carefully points out the immensely important contrast between His peace and the world’s peace. This is worth contemplating. What is the difference between the two?

The world does indeed have its own version of what it calls peace. The peace that the world has to offer consists in only one thing: the absence of conflict. This kind of “peace” happens in those rare moments when nothing at all is going wrong. It’s an external peace. It’s only skin deep, and it’s terribly fleeting. How long can a scenario with no stress factors at all last, on this fallen planet? When we finally find a moment like that, it’s gone quicker than the fragrance of weak cologne.

Jesus’ peace is immeasurably better, in every way. His peace is an abiding peace, an expression of spiritual power. It protects us through the fiercest of storms. Jesus’ peace stays with us. It strengthens, nurtures, and heals our souls. It steadies us. It encompasses us. It teaches us not to be afraid.

There’s something else He wants us to understand about His peace: it flows from the enduring presence of Holy Spirit in our lives. Look at the context for today’s verse. Here’s what immediately precedes it: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:26, NKJV). In verse 26, He promises the Helper. In verse 27, He promises us His peace. You see, real peace flows directly from the Helper’s intimate indwelling.

So let’s unpack the details of this covenant promise, this unbreakable guarantee that His Holy Spirit will teach us everything we need to know. This surety is a fundamental part of His provision of peace. With this profound assurance, we can walk in His loving instruction not to let our hearts be troubled or fearful. We can remind our own hearts that He’s got us, and He will never let us go. Through the Helper’s empowering, we can then choose to live in supernatural peace that goes beyond our circumstances.

There’s yet more for us here in our verse today. Jesus said He’s giving us His peace. These words came out of His human mouth, as He was living in a human body during His time physically on earth with us – a human body impassioned by human emotions and enduring human trials and temptations. He was truly walking in our shoes… yet brimming over with peace.

In that moment, He looked at His disciples in the eyes and told them they could have His peace — the very same peace they’d been watching Him walk in for three and a half years. Peace that emanated from Him and got on everyone around Him. Peace unfazed by savage storms or legions of demons. Unshakable peace. Perfect Peace. Permanent Peace. He was giving it to them. It was now… theirs.

And in this moment He is giving it to you. It is now… yours.

You, too, get to have His very own peace. You get to have the peace that He Himself walked in, in the flesh, because He has given you the Helper to live inside of you. Just as Holy Spirit empowered Jesus with peace not based on externals, so He now endues you with the invincible power of His peace. Peace that knows to the core that the Spirit of Jesus will teach, guide, keep, and protect you. Peace that tells your heart that you are His forever.

So…

Don’t let your heart be afraid, dearly loved child of God. Until the end of the earth, His very own peace is yours.

*************************************

Have you seen the difference between external peace and internal peace played out? What are your observations about it?