Philippians 4:8-9 NLT
[8] “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. [9] Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
Paul adds one final ingredient to the security of knowing and being protected by God’s peace… what we put into our minds determines our responses or reactions to the issues we face. What’s in our hearts determines who is in charge.
Our minds are like computers, or rather, computers are like our minds. What we put in will come out. If we put in fear, anxiety, and unbelief, these attitudes are sure to come out when we are tested. If we charge our minds with thoughts that rest in God’s Word, we are guaranteed a heavenly peace that guides, monitors, and protects us through our every thought and action and….God Himself supervises our lives!
Paul gives us this good counsel…
Colossians 3:15 NLT
[15] “And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.”
There it is again! Peace and gratitude, faithful bedfellows if we want to navigate this life without succumbing to crises.
God’s peace is part of our spiritual armour in our battle against the flesh. The war zone is our old human nature and the combatants are dark spiritual forces that try to influence what we say and do by reacting out of our sinful nature when we are challenged.
We are never called to fight the devil. Jesus fought him and won at the cross. We are called to apply God’s truth to ourselves in our hearts and minds so that believing the truth will protect us from Satan’s deception.
To change the metaphor, God’s peace is like the referee in a ball game. When we allow circumstance to tell us what to believe instead of God’s Word, our peace is disturbed. The “ref” blows the whistle, stops the game and tells us how to correct the error.
What is the truth we are to believe? Paul said that truth stands on two feet, giving us balance that makes it difficult for Satanic forces to topple us.
One foot is peace with God.
Romans 5:1 NLT
[1] “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.”
Peace with God takes care of our past. By faith, our debt of sin has been paid. We have been absolved of guilt. We are free to approach God with a clear conscience. There is nothing left to accuse us. We are at peace with God.
This is a strong foundation to stand on but, without the support of the other “foot”, we are still vulnerable to being upended.
The other foot, then is the peace of God.
This peace takes care of our present. As we learned in our previous post, we enjoy the peace of God when we play open cards with Him. We offload our anxieties on God; He replaces worry, anxiety, and fear with peace.
Now we have balance, two feet firmly planted on God’s Word. However, it’s what we continue to believe in our day-to-day living that maintains His peace.
How do we know we are believing the truth?
We are told that we must not believe our feelings. This isn’t true. Feelings are the monitor of our beliefs. When we believe what is not true about God and ourselves… for example, when we are afraid in our circumstances rather than trusting God’s promises, the fear we feel tells us that we are believing a lie.
By contrast, when we trust in God despite our circumstances, God’s peace confirms the truth we believe about His presence in the situation. So, God’s peace will keep us on track while disturbed emotions warn us that we are believing a lie.
The final ingredient that will guarantee God’s peace that never fluctuates with changing circumstances is God’s Word in our hearts. When we fail to arm ourselves with God’s truth, our minds are vulnerable to the devil’s influence. If we take the trouble to fill our minds with God’s Word, Satan’s lies will not find a place to settle in our minds and unsettle us. Since we cannot think two opposite thoughts at the same time, thinking God’s thoughts will immunise our minds against Satan’s lies.
Now, Paul tells us, to close the circle, when our hearts and minds… our hearts being who we really are… are full of God’s Word, we are full of God!
Philippians 4:9 NLT
[9] “Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
With us? What does that mean? I though Jesus said He would never leave us? True, but there is more to God being with us than just His passive presence.
This “with” is the same “with” as God’s “with Joseph”, and “with David”, for example.
Genesis 39:2 NLT
[2] “The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master.”
1 Samuel 18:14 NLT
[14] “David continued to succeed in everything he did, for the Lord was with him.”
Why was the Lord “with” these two men? Wasn’t it because they were “with” Him? When we choose to follow the Lord by living in the light of His Word, God Himself is present to support and bless us. This does not mean that everything will always go right for us. We will have hardships as Jesus said but…God will be there to see us through, securing and stabilising us with His peace.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the bad things that are happening around us. We can lose heart with the hopelessness of our circumstances but, if God’s Word is our foundation, we stand on the solid bedrock of truth, and God Himself, by His Spirit in us, is with and acting for us for our good and His glory.