DO YOU HAVE PERFECT PEACE?

My peaceful grandson Luke in the midst of a crazy Costco.

During my early 20’s God blessed me with an unusually wonderful 85 year old Bible study leader. Grace Burke. Many of the verses she often repeated to us have remained in my memory all of these years and have enriched my life for the glory of God. Among the most useful and dear of those verses came from Isaiah. “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.” (Isaiah 26:3-4)

The following explanation about “perfect peace” comes from David Guzik and I found his comments to be very informative and encouraging.

Some can have this perfect peace, but it is fleeting and they are never kept there. Others can be kept in peace, but it is not a perfect peace, it is the peace of the wicked, the peace of spiritual sleep and ultimate destruction. But there is a perfect peace that the LORD will keep is in.

“Whose mind is stayed on You:” This is the place of perfect peace, and the source of it. When we keep our minds stayed - settled upon, established upon - the LORD Himself, then we can be kept in this perfect peace. To be kept in this perfect peace, our mind must be stayed on the LORD. If our mind is stayed on ourselves, or our problems, or the problem people in our lives, or on anything else, we can’t have this perfect peace.

“Because He trusts in You:” This is another way of expressing the idea of keeping our minds stayed on Him. Almost always, you keep your mind stayed on whatever you are trusting. When we trust the LORD, we keep our mind stayed on Him. The battle for trust in our lives begins in our minds. If we trust the LORD, it will show in our actions, but it will begin in our mind.

If the LORD calls us to rely on Him completely with our mind, He appeals to our mind with a rational reason why we should trust the LORD - because He is everlasting strength. It isn’t that the LORD has everlasting strength, He is everlasting strength. End of quote from David Guzik.

Every day may we all be growing in our confidence of God’s care, direction, and sovereignty; and experiencing perfect peace.

This Thursday morning we will be zeroing in on Psalm 19. Please plan to join us as we have a great discussion of this Psalm and consider its reality in our lives.

DEPENDENCY AND PEACE

How much do we really trust God?  The gravest danger in our lives is being dependent on someone, or something besides God.  Worry, anxiety and stress indicate quite clearly that our trust is not resting on Almighty God, but rather, something very feeble.  As I'm studying Sarah in the Old Testament I see growth from self-reliance to believing and depending on God.  Like all bad news, we tend to most remember her conniving to make things happen.  In reality the most outstanding thing about her is that she grew to trust God even when the outcome looked completely impossible.  Can you imagine having a baby at 90 years of age when you had never had one before?  But, God promised and eventually Sarah believed Him.  Think of the trouble she would have saved herself and the entire world from if she had trusted God from the very beginning.  Think of the peace that could have been.

This painting by Ezra Suko gives a good illustration of peace--made by God.

Oh that we would read God's words and believe what He says.  If we did that consistently, what would our lives look like?  May the Lord be our life.