This Elusive Peace

When Jesus Christ (Yeshua ha Maschiach, in Aramaic)  was born in Bethlehem, angels appeared to very ordinary shepherd folk looking after their sheep on the hills of Bethlehem and declared.

Glory to God in the highest! Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all men!

The angels proclaimed peace for all of mankind at the birth of the divine child Jesus.  In fact the Holy Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace.  This “peace” is not just a mere cessation of hostilities, nor is it just political peace between two warring parties, it is a peace that goes beyond this, it is a peace that brings wholeness to the individual, a community, a nation.  It brings prosperity, it brings rest, and it removes worries.  That is the kind of peace that God was offering mankind through the Lord Jesus Christ.  Hence Jesus Christ is rightly called, the “Saviour of the World” and the “Prince of Peace.”  Because He is the One who can bring that peace that everyone’s talking about – between nations, individuals and within individuals – but no one’s able to bring about.

The Holy Bible also exhorts us,

Do not be anxious about anything but in everything with prayer and petition present your requests to God and the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. [Philippians 4:6, 7].

We can look at it like this, if we have peace within ourselves, we can have peace with others.  People everywhere are trying hard to find this peace, they are searching for this for generations, every individual is searching for it, but real peace has been so elusive. 

Even nations are searching for this peace, they form peace treaties and pacts, but they still keep developing weapons of ever higher sophistication, of greater destructive capability.

What does this tell us about human nature?  There’s something that’s gone badly berserk – something that needs an eternal fix, otherwise these conflicts between nations and our internal conflicts will never cease.

The Holy Bible has a special insight into the human nature.  It clearly tells us that:

There is no difference, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. [Romans 3:22,23].

This thing called “sin” is at work in human nature which is robbing every individual of peace.  This “sin” is rebelliousness of man against his/her Creator.  For through disobedience and denial of the Living God, man is separated from His Creator.  But God in His mercy and unfailing compassion for mankind, set about in motion a plan to rescue us, to bring us back to Him, to remove sin and to establish peace.  He came down to earth and became one of us.

He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. [Ephesians 2:17].

And Christ paid the ultimate price for our sin.  He stood in our place before God and took all the punishment we deserve for our sin. 

For the wages of sin is death. [Romans 6:23].

Christ Jesus died on the cross for us, paid all that is due of us to God because of our sin.  Jesus Christ brought us: peace with God, peace between individuals and peace to have in ourselves.

For He Himself is our peace. [Ephesians 2:14a].

So, despite all our shortcomings, God is continually working to bring about peace within our inner-selves, peace between us and Him, and so to bring lasting peace to all earth.

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us. [Romans 5:8]

How can anyone now say:  "God hasn't done anything for me!"  We can see from what we read so far that God has done everything for us.  He realised our need for peace with Him, peace within ourselves, peace with our family members and peace with our neighbours.  

If only we would welcome Christ Jesus (Yeshua ha Maschiach, Issy Mahsee, Yeesu Masih) into our hearts, we would begin to experience this true, all elusive peace in our hearts and in our lives.

Simple Message of Truth

You know something, the first time Christ came, He came as a baby, completely vulnerable. He came full of grace and compassion towards the people. He healed people, opened the eyes of the blind, gave legs to the lame and paralysed, made lepers clean, He gave speech to the mute, healed the deaf, He fed the hungry and ultimately He demonstrated the greatest power - He raised the dead back to life!!  This is unprecedented and unmatched.  Christ has the power to give life to the dead because He has power over life and power over death.  This means He is the source of life, the One from whom life comes.  Hence He has the power to make the broken, the sick, the diseased, the hungry and the starved both living and dead whole. 

Over and above and beyond all that, Christ paid for the very reason, the very reason why everything that's born on earth has to die.  He paid for the "sin" (papam) of one and every man and woman once and for all, by offering Himself as the ultimate sacrifice on the cross.

This is the Gospel - the Good News - for the whole world, for every people of every tribe, language, nation, no matter where they are. It is the Good News of salvation.

This same Jesus, healed members of our family, of limbs that were twisted were restored of my cousin-in-law, of my father when he was admitted to hospital, Christ healed him!  Jesus Christ did several other miracles in our family lives.  That was what He did two thousand years ago, that is what He's doing even right now.  We know many members in our church who were once worshipping all kinds of "gods", and had sicknesses of different kinds.  The doctors couldn't help, the gods couldn't help but when they called upon Jesus, He healed them.  Hence they recognised Christ as the True and Living One, gave their lives to Him and started to come to our church.  The evidence is there for all to see.

"You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you," says the Living God. Jeremiah 29:13.

Why and what is life in the Holy Spirit?

John the Baptist came baptizing with water, but the Lord Jesus came baptizing with the Holy Spirit and fire. Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16. And in John 1:33 God our Heavenly Father testifies of His Son and says: "...the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." The Holy Spirit is given to everyone that accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. So, the first step obviously is to accept Christ's Lordship and deity and recognize one's own sinfulness and rebellion against God. The word is: R E P E N T A N C E. The Holy Spirit then is given to seal our righteousness in God's sight through the acceptance of Christ's sacrifice on our individual behalf. The Holy Spirit then gives us identity in the sight of God and He becomes our guarantee for our final redemption.

For all believers, the event that marked the beginning of one’s Christian life is their water baptism and their public confession of faith in Christ. Church-going and other so-called Christian activities become the next stage of one's life. But for many an average Christian, a victorious life is something that we hear or read about, but is rarely one's own personal experience. The persevering and continual thriving Christian life are stories to be read in the Holy Bible, and other's testimonies, people whom you and I would probably never meet one to one. If Christ came to give life and life in abundance then why couldn't you, why couldn't I and why couldn't everyone that trusts in Christ enjoy that life even long after our water baptism? Can we bring back the missing ingredient? Has the Word of God made provision for including and bringing in this missing ingredient? I think the answer to these questions is a resounding "Yes!"

God had made provision beyond the water baptism for an everyday victorious Christian life. The Name of the One to be born the Saviour of the world was proclaimed as "Emmanuel." So He is to be an ever present God for us. And Christ’s presence with us is made possible by the promised Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enters our lives, inhabits even our bodies when Christ baptizes us with His Spirit. When an individual is baptized in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God comes to literally live, tabernacle in and within that person. What an amazing God?! What an amazing Companion we could have for life?! What an amazing provision that God had provided for us?!

The Holy Spirit counsels us, advises us, prods us continually like a pilot helping to steer our lives in the direction of the will and purposes of God. God's voice is heard that bit clearer and when we open the Word, it becomes that bit alive and we begin to see the relevance and even begin to have an insight on the application of the Word of God for our everyday life.

The crux of the matter is that we do not have to try hard to please God. God Himself comes into our life, transforms us and helps us to align our wills with His and so please Him in every way of our lives. Ah! Isn’t that a victorious Christian life?! All we have to do is be baptized with the Holy Spirit and God will begin to work inside of us and as we choose to listen to the Holy Spirit’s leading in our hearts, God will be able to mould our hearts for the better and we will begin to see transformation begin from deep inside of us. The Holy Spirit helps us to overcome the weaknesses of our flesh and enables a victorious Christian life. As we practice this obedience to the Spirit of Christ, over a period of time we begin to be following God with a single-minded devotion and dedication.

Now, let’s look at the following verse in 2^nd Corinthians chapter 3. Now the Lord is the Spirit. Verse 17. The Lord Jesus is being addressed as the Spirit of God. We could also read this as the Spirit being referred to as the Lord. So, when the Spirit is Lord in our lives, He requires our obedience, He deserves our willingness to follow His lead in our lives in devotion to Christ.

1 John 4:13 reads as follows: By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. Now, the Apostle John is also recalling Christ’s Words from the night of the Passover in the Gospel of John chapter 15 when he was writing the above words in his letter. Abide in Me, and I in you. Verse 3. From the above two verses, we can know that Christ abides in us when we are indwelt by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God in us is the presence of Christ in us. So, now we are also placed in a position where we could be potentially led by the Spirit of God, because we could also hear from Him, because He is living within us. The Letter to the Romans has some profound insight on the Spirit of God especially in chapter 8. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Verse 14. What this simply means is that those who follow and work in conjunction with the Holy Spirit for the purposes of the Kingdom of God and for the glory of the Son of God are called and seen by God the Father as His sons and daughters. And these can also easily address God as “Father, Abba, Daddy!” Our sonship and inheritance in God is made known to us by His Spirit. Our identity in Christ in God is revealed to us by the presence of His Holy Spirit in us.

With the Holy Spirit in us, we are also empowered to live as powerful witnesses of Christ in our everyday lives, so sign-posting our lives to Jesus. In the Holy Spirit, we also stand on the ground where we could perform works that Christ prophesied we would be able to accomplish, even greater things than He had done while on earth in the flesh. Wouldn’t that be a victorious Christian life indeed?

Remember though: the Holy Spirit always says what Christ tells Him to say, even as Christ had done exactly what He saw His Father in Heaven do. God the Spirit glorifies God the Son, God the Son glorifies God the Father and God the Father glorifies His Son through His Spirit. For God does not do anything except by His Spirit. “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” Says the LORD of hosts. Zechariah 4:6.