The Biblical Way to Inner Peace
Inner peace is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). As a core effect of Christianity, it is not supposed to be a distant ideal. Its absence in both teaching and reality is not because it doesn’t exist. The teaching for arriving at it is found in the Bible; and it has been there for thousands of years, waiting to be found. Most of those who seek inner peace prefer to look at other ways of arriving at it. The Biblical way is the only one that brings God directly into the process. In this way, inner peace can be extracted from the Godhead; otherwise, we can only have whatever peace we can muster on our own strength, which is lacking.
God provides the peace that passes all understanding, which is a peace that comes from the Spirit of Christ when He is within us. We cannot have it without Him. Our own human minds cannot produce it for ourselves because it is received by trusting in God, and not by leaning on our own understanding or meditation practices. This draws Christ’s peace and rest into us when our unconditional trust is directed towards Him.
Christ’s mission on earth was to enable us to arrive at this higher level of peace which was lost for humanity in the Garden of Eden. People have tried to regain it since then. This is why Jesus is called the last Adam which became a life-giving Spirit (1Corinthians 15:45). When Christ’s Spirit is within us, He is not only able to share His peace with us, but He can also share His other qualities with us which are parts of the fruit of the Spirit. This includes inner strength (temperance) which enhances our will-power.
The Bible tells us to seek peace and pursue it (Psalm 34:14). My journey towards peace started many years ago with my attempts to find contentment through lust. I never got enough of what I was seeking in order to satisfy me. Lust is called deceitful because there is always the feeling that there is more out there if we can only have it, and then we will be happy. It never happens because only God can provide the rest that we are really seeking. Things and people can’t provide this. This is the reason why we are frustrated even when we get everything that we think will make us content. Humans were created for a connection with God. We are supposed to be frustrated without God. I fully came to this realization after I eventually surrendered myself to God and found the peace that I had been seeking all along, but never arriving at it through other means.
Prior to all of this, I did come to realize that I was going about things in the wrong way; but the next step was finding the right way. Eastern philosophy taught me that inner peace was possible; and this was helpful for a few years; but it only brought me to a place of peace which I could arrive at on my own without God. My curiosity moved me towards wanting to understand what Christianity had to say about this type of thing. I wasn’t sure where to start my inquiry; but fortunately I looked into the Bible to try to find answers. To my surprise, it had a lot to say about inner peace. I eventually found the verses that told me what I needed to do in order to get God’s peace. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to try it at first; but when I did, there was no turning back. God immediately received me into the Kingdom. It was as easy as being anxious for nothing by casting all of my care on the Lord (see Philippians 4:6-7, 1Peter 5:5-7, Proverbs 3:5, Psalms 37:7, 55:22, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 26:3-4, 55:7-9).
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