Jim shared Chapter 2,  the heart of our studies, the chapter on peace.

What is peace? Think of synonyms  or phrases for the word peace. You can also answer by saying what peace is not:

harmony, agreement accord, amity, armistice, cessation, conciliation, concord, friendship, love, neutrality, order, pacification, pacifism, reconciliation, treaty, truce, unanimity, union, unity, the absence of war, SIN

Antonyms—

agitation, distress, frustration, upset, worry, at war.

God wants us to live in peace.  Romans 12:18 says: if it is  possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. You know that Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God and to love each other. In order to do that you must be at peace.

How can we achieve peace? First we must have peace with God. During the Civil War Ulysses S. Grant was given it a nickname based on his first two initials. He was called Unconditional Surrender Grant. He was called this because after each battle he won he would not accept surrender from the enemy unless it was unconditional. During World War II, victory was not achieved  until the Axis Powers agreed to unconditional surrender to the Allies.

In order to  have peace with God we must unconditionally surrender to Him. As an old hymn says, “ I surrender all.”  We know that God so loved the world that he gave us his son to be sacrificed for our sins.   Believing in Jesus is not enough though. We need to confess our sins. Remember, if we confess our sins, He will be faithful and just to forgive us our sins.   Then we must walk in the Spirit. In Galatians 5:22  we learn that we are truly walking in the spirit, we will show fruit. In that fruit is that we will show love,  joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

If we truly have peace with God we will have the Spirit within us. And if we have the Spirit within us, our fruit will be displayed to others.

But peace with God is not enough because we can’t have peace with God unless you also have peace  with others. We especially need peace with  our church.  Jesus call peace  within the church, unity. In his last  prayer, he asked God to give unity to his disciples and to us.  He specifically asked for unity for those who would follow.  He asked for and for those who will believe the message passed on by the disciples.

Why must we maintain unity within the church? We have to in order to glorify God and Jesus. How can we show others  our   faith is real if we are constantly squabbling? Jesus even said that he doesn’t want our sacrifices unless we have reconciled ourselves with our brothers And sisters. God asks us to confess our sins to each other so that we can reconcile. We must go to our brother, our sister,  our wives, our children, our parents, admit what we have done wrong and ask for forgiveness.  If we harmed someone in public, in the eyes of others, then  our request for forgiveness  must be public as well.

If we look at peace as the absence of sin, we can better understand what we need to do to be in unity with our brothers and sisters. We can’t share our peace with the world unless we first have unity among ourselves. And we have to remember, if peace among ourselves is not sufficient, we need to spread peace with all the world.

Finally, God wants us to have peace within ourselves. Sometimes this is the hardest piece to achieve. It can only be achieved, when we truly surrender and follow God’s plan for lives. Wednesday night in men’s group part of our discussion centered around following God’s plan. We often question God, are you sure this is what you want from me? We know it’s foolish, we know that we cannot have perfect peace until we get back on his path for us, but we still want to exercise our free will in a way that leads us astray.

We can only find that path through our study of the Bible, both by ourselves, and with others, and through opening our hearts to God’s will for  each of us through prayer.

At our last congregational transition task force  meeting,   Pastor Dale asked each of us to think about what peace would be for each of us if he could grant us peace. I want to pass that on to each one of you this week. Think about what peace means to you. How can you achieve this true peace?

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