Peace

We are less than a week from Christmas and I imagine the hustle and bustle is in high gear. Many are running around like their hair is on fire trying to get last-minute preparations set. The challenge for many, if not all of us is where is the peace in all this rushing around? We may ask, where is peace at all?

Sadly, we look around at our world and it seems all we see is anger, hatred, and fighting. There is war in the Ukraine. There is war in the Middle East with Israel and terrorist organizations. I’m thinking to myself, it’s Christmas, where is the peace?  Then I am reminded that there will not be any peace on this earth until Jesus returns to set up His kingdom.

If that is the case, then how can we sing about peace during the holiday season? We must understand the peace that Christmas brings is not earthly peace, but a spiritual peace between God and man. The Bible tells us that before Christ came there was enmity between God and man. This divide was created because of sin, for God and man couldn't be reconciled until sin could be dealt with. Jesus was and is the remedy for that which kept us not only separate from God but made us His enemy.

Two of my favorite chapters in the Bible are found in the Gospel of John chapters 3 and 4. I love these chapters because they show the truth of many different things. It speaks that God so loved, it speaks that Christ came not just for the religious, but for those no one else would have anything to do with.

In John 4:14 Jesus explains this peace by an illustration we would understand. “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” There is a thirst in all of man. It is a thirst for hope, joy, peace, and love. We look in so many places and always come up empty. Christ came to overflow our souls with all that we need and want. The peace we search for will never be found in man, the peace you and I long for is that peace between us and God. This peace finally came over two thousand years ago in a little town called Bethlehem, in a stable, lying in a feeding trough. His name is Prince of Peace. I pray you know Him today, and that you have finally found PEACE.