Finding Peace In God!

Mat 11
28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Have you ever been so spiritually tired that even though you are the most happening person in your friends’ circle, you cry when you are alone? You are all ok on the outside but you’re a mess on the inside and your smile does a good job of covering up for you. The truth is, you have no peace and that is only between you and God. You ought to know that humankind was made to glorify God and enjoy him forever. However, from the fall, humankind became a law unto ourselves (Gen 3:1-6), and in becoming a law unto ourselves, we became gods to ourselves and our chief-end was not living for God’s glory but living for our own glory, and this is why humankind has no peace, estranged from God.

Isaiah 9:6 (makes reference to Jesus as the Prince of Peace)
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Mat 10 (the yoke of Christ as mentioned in Mat 11:29 above)
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.

Mat 10 (The Context)
16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues; 18 and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. 20 For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.
21 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. 22 You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.

If the above 3 pieces of scripture appear as a contradiction to you, allow me to explain these to you in the context/light of scripture. However, before I come to this, I would like to stress on the importance of doing what’s right, no matter how inconvenient or out of the way it is for us personally. The Bible says that God is looking for those who will worship him in spirit & truth (John 4:23-4), and the Bible also says that the kingdom of heaven is like a narrow gate and the way to God is narrow (Mat 7:13-14) because pleasing God is only possible in Jesus Christ. The truth however is, that there is peace in all that righteous striving because when you act according to the righteousness that is revealed in scripture, though the people of the world may hate you (Mat 5:11-12) for your righteous indignation against homosexuality, counterfeit religion, abortions and immorality, you will know the peace of God in your striving against the wickedness of the world.

Philippians 4
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Coming back to the seeming contradictions that exist in the Mat 10:34-36 & Isaiah 9:6, mentioned above. We must understand that true peace can only be found in the truth, and truth is what God thinks. Sweet lies may flatter the world, but they don’t really bring peace. Sweet lies only help people sweep their sin under the carpet instead of dealing with it head on by way of repentance unto Jesus and believing in His Gospel. So, if you are ok with wearing a smile on the outside while you have an emotional storm brewing on the inside, which you cannot do anything about, you can continue dealing with your life by way of sweet lies.

Ezek 36
27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29 And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. 30 I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. 31 Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.

John 12
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

So, if I have to say so, peace is a byproduct of your stand for God and his righteous. If you look at the above verses, you may notice a striking similarity between Ezek 36:31 & John 12:25. If I am to explain this to you, I would reiterate the fact that we are all sinners from the fall of Adam, a law to ourselves, gods to ourselves. We each have gone our own way; our self-righteousness is devious and meets the means of serving ourselves by deeds that are nothing short of wicked. When this realization dawns on us, we understand that God is the real God and the chief-end of our being is to serve His purpose, because He truly is God, and this self-serving nature we have, does nothing but flies in the face of God. The peace we are therefore looking for, lies in finding our purpose in God, and that lies in reflecting the light of His nature (which is His Law), even in the midst of the darkness of this world (Luke 8:16-17), because we were after all made/restored in His image (Gen 1:26/Rom 8:29). So, we are to carry His nature in our hearts, so dearly that it is as good as having it written on our hearts (Jer 31:33), and in doing so wear this heart on our sleeve (Ps 119:102-103), in a world that wickedly tries to suppress the righteousness of God by supporting the likes of abortion as a woman’s right to murder, Islam as a religion of peace, homosexuality in marriage & every other form of immorality, which God hates.

Mat 28 (Great Commission)
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

John 3 (the word of God never returns void)
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 

1 Cor 6:2 (this is part of the great commission observing that teaching Jesus commandments)
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?

There is peace in bearing witness to the righteousness of God in this dark world. The true Christian is like the salt of the earth (Mat 5:13), and though true Christians may be few, we are enough, just like the little salt that is enough to flavour a whole lot of food, and we find peace in it because the joy of the Lord is our strength. So, I call out to you, whoever you are, wherever you are, come out of the lies you are hiding behind, come into the light and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32), you no longer have to pretend to be at peace or even pretend to be happy for that matter. The apostle Paul (2Cor 7:4), found joy sharing the Gospel in prison and that joy can be yours, all you need to do is seek the Lord your Maker in prayer, know Him in Jesus Christ (John 1:18) through the knowledge of scripture (66 books of the Bible), learn His nature and delight in it (Psalm 37:4) and that peace of God will fill up that emptiness in you, which nothing awesome enough but God can fill.