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(Ver 1.0) This is Part 2 of the Bible study series about the Almighty God of “Peace”, and His amazing Works always performed in the ways of Shalom “Peace”. This lesson is the second in the series and if you have not started reading this series from the beginning, it is strongly recommended that you begin with “Part 1”. Today we will continue learning God’s “Peace” concepts found within His Kingdom government. But this lesson will move us further to connect us with God’s works of Peace being received through the unity of Peace in humans.
In this lesson we will be learning how “Peace” is a dominant connecting God force which accesses and possesses His Power. This means by us choosing to live our life in His kind of Shalom “Peace”, it places us in agreement with His ways. With us choosing to be in union with “Love” and “Peace” in our spirit and soulish thoughts, carnal actions and spiritual words, the world can easily see that we are different and real Christians.
This is because a true God kind of internal “peace” can work outward in an external display of “Peace”. This real “Peace” is so different than anything those in the world call “peace” who are living in fear, hatred, and worry. Most Christians are going through the same things they are but have a different attitude because we have a God of Peace on our side.
Living in God’s “Peace” also appears to open doors of opportunity for hearing from God more quickly and easily, to help us know what to do in every situation. This daily chosen lifestyle of “Peace” replaces any “fear” and thus aligning us with the ability for receiving God’s great gifts of Grace. As we remain in “Peace” we connect with His power to help us. This is the reason why Satan is doing everything possible to destabilize our lives, our families, the church, our governments, our planet and our relationships with God and each other. If you are ready to learn more about this essential subject, let us begin.
Staying in the Peace of God that Wins Over All Enemies
It is essential to learn that over the course of Bible recorded history, there has not always remained a total state of Godlike “peace” in heaven nor on the earth. For example, if everyone lived in the “Peace” of God with each other and with God, we would never have any problems. We started learning these truths in lesson 1. Please remember what we learned in Part 1 where God spoke about a spiritual warfare taking place and a soon coming victory:
Romans 16:20 – And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
Please notice, this verse begins with the added emphasis of God being “Peace” and ends with the mention of His “Grace”. Why do you think God is emphasizing His lifestyle of “Peace” and His gifts of “Grace” in this verse? Why isn’t God mentioning any other of His qualities like His “omniscience”, “omnipresence”, omnipotence, etc. that are more aligned with winning a war? Please tell me if you understand that crushing someone’s head under your feet is a figurative expression for conquering an enemy? Could it be that living a life in “Peace” is the way to “victory”? I believe it is.
But to the natural mind and normal human ways of thinking, this verse appears to be a contradiction. We have a God of Peace who is at war with an evil spirit named “Satan”. But we learn here that He will use us in the church to crush His enemy’s head under our feet for our victory. God implies this is how an Omnipotent God operates in “Peace”. This is both strange and amazing news for us.
First, it is amazing God trusts us this much to take on this responsibility. But then we know because God says He will be the one doing the crushing of Satan under our feet, that this guarantees us His power to accomplish it. So how do we cooperate with this crushing? Let us focus on another set of spiritual warfare verses to learn more about these concepts of Peace and Grace during spiritual battle.
Ephesians 6:10 – Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
Ephesians 6:11 – Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Ephesians 6:12 – For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6:13 – Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Ephesians 6:14 – Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
Ephesians 6:15 – And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
Ephesians 6:16 – Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
Ephesians 6:17 – And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
We do not have the time to teach all these verses in this lesson. But we can clearly read and notice that God is writing to us about a spiritual warfare that we are in. God clearly says it is not with flesh and blood, meaning we are not fighting against humans in the flesh. Uh oh! Not every Christians believes what God just said here in verse 12.
But God makes it more clear by listing 6 classes of spiritual weaponry that will certainly cause Satan to be crushed under our feet as we saw will happen soon in Romans 16:20. Satan is certainly one of these and possibly is the chief ruler called a “principality”. We are not going to teach this in full either, because we want to learn how we fight and how we win in accordance with utilizing our subject of Shalom “Peace”.
From reading these verses, it looks like “Victory” over Satan is obtained by us wearing “All” the armor of God that was mentioned in Ephesians 6:14-17. But notice that one of the key pieces of armor listed, covers our feet and this is what God mentions that He will use to crush the head of Satan.
This sounds important. What are our “feet” supposed to “wear” or be “covered” with? Isn’t it amazing that on our “feet” we are instructed to put on the shoes of the gospel of “Peace” (Ephesians 6:15). God has just connected Himself (the God of Peace) to our “feet” with the common emphasis of “Peace”. Could this be how we win over Satan? It appears that the “Peace” of God in unity with our lifestyle of “Peace” is a key determining factor for allowing God to use our “Feet” to crush Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15). Let us now discover what this means to God.
Joshua 1:3 – Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.
In the Old Covenant, God placed another amazing emphasis upon our human feet. God speaking to Joshua told him, that wherever he set his foot, God will cause him to tread down his enemies. Notice that this is another unity agreement of two in “Peace” with each other. There is the Spirit of the God of Peace, coming into partnership with a human that must also remain in peace. The human Joshua had to hear the voice of God to get direction and then be willing to obey God without fear.
Then these two that are in a covenant partnership both choosing to work in peaceful harmony with each other determine the victory. This is truly because 1 John 4:4 says, “you have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world”. This literally means that Joshua if he and Israel obeyed and did not fall into the trap of the sin of fear, would win every battle, over every enemy. Therefore, we need to learn what God is speaking of in these real statements of “Peace” shoes, walking and treading down our enemies.
Colossians 2:6 – As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
Wow! Notice this verse is about “walking” in Christ. Is Christ not, called the Prince of Peace in Isaiah 9:6? Do you think this has anything to do with our feet having on the shoes of the Gospel of “Peace” and walking on our enemy? Of course it does!
How did you receive Christ? According to Ephesians 2:8 we received the salvation of Christ Jesus by another partnership of peace being first, God’s Grace and second our faith. Didn’t this agreement of grace and faith place us “In Christ?” According to Galatians 3:27 and other verses it did. How did this occur? One of the key steps was that we had to hear the “Gospel of Peace” and believe it (Romans 10:14)!
This is another key example of us regaining our “Peace” with God. We could never receive Salvation if God was angry with us and saw us as evil and unrighteous. Fortunately for us, this is not the case. According to Romans 5:10 we were reconciled to God by the death of Jesus Christ, and we were saved by His resurrected “Life”. To be reconciled teaches us there has been given a gift of perfect “Peace” now between God and humans.
Do you see that it was God’s reestablishment of “Peace” in Christ that even gave us any opportunity to be saved? God had to solve the human problem of “sin” corruption that kept us far apart from His perfect “Holiness”. God accomplished this in Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection from the dead.
Because man is unable to keep God’s standard of holiness and perfection, God chose to become a man to accomplish this requirement for us. God made Jesus our mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), and because He kept the law and was sinless (Hebrews 4:15), we are given His gifts of righteousness and peace to legally restore our access back into God’s full grace (Hebrews 4:16). These works of God in Christ made available to us, His Grace, authority and power to rule and reign in this life over our enemy! We know all of this by reading Romans 5:17:
Romans 5:17 – For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)
Here is an amazing verse that is ignored by too many Christians. God has done more for us than many realize. This verse clearly states we “reign” now in this current world, which was dominated by Satan, our enemy. To reign in life is clearly the action of God to make us a kingdom of God representative here on earth. This means we need to begin to believe it and act like it. Let’s learn more about this now.
Let us return to further analyze Colossians 2:6 again. What does it mean to walk in Christ? We have touched on this when we read God’s commandment to Joshua. Remember this commandment involved a partnership between God who knows exactly what to do to win, telling those that could not win without God’s help, exactly what was needed for them to do to achieve their legal victory. This means they walked by “Faith”, having confidence and trust in God that what He said to do would cause theme to overcome their enemies.
For example, go back and pay attention to what happened to Joshua in chapter 5 before the fall of Jericho.
Jos 5:13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?
Jos 5:14 And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?
Jos 5:15 And the captain of the LORD’S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.
What we are observing is more key verses about “feet”. This pattern was also repeated in Exodus 3:5 when God told Moses to remove his shoes because the ground was holy. God’s holiness and our feet are directly connected or perhaps we should say they were formerly opposed to each other. Of course, we are speaking in figurative expressions with spiritual meanings as God also is doing numerous times in the Bible.
It appears like God when speaking to natural humans and then telling them to remove their natural shoes, is a symbolic representation for a far greater spiritual truth. What we are about to discover is that what we are wearing on our feet symbolically defines the direction of our travel and shows our heart’s motivations. For example, do you recall what John the Baptist said about the “feet” and “shoes” of Jesus?
Mark 1:7 – And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.
Here is an amazing statement. John speaking about Jesus said, “I am not worthy, to stoop down to unloose the latchet of His shoes”. John clearly declares that Jesus will be coming after him, as a far superior man. John further implies Jesus will have an immensely greater purpose for being here on the earth than he. John is implying the existence of God in the man Jesus, and His lifestyle, His works, His character, His assigned role and objective targets were of such immense value that there were no changes, or modifications to His behavior, that were needed to be performed.
John has made a prophetic comparison between who he is and who Jesus is, and this comparison involved their “feet” and “shoes” which is symbolic of the steps that they will travel on the earth, and what they will accomplish. Finally, compare the words spoken about Jesus, to the words Jesus spoke about John. In Luke 7:28 Jesus said, “I say unto you, among those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist”. If the greatest Old Covenant prophet named John was not able to take the shoes of Jesus off his feet, who could this man Jesus be, except the Creator God?
Here is another key description of “feet”, but this time it is Jesus that is washing the disciples’ feet. Please read these verses carefully and pay attention to what is being spoken, in the light of what we are learning about feet and shoes. Notice how many times feet and things about the feet are mentioned in these verses:
John 13:4 – He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.
John 13:5 – After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.
John 13:6 – Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?
John 13:7 – Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.
John 13:8 – Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
John 13:9 – Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
John 13:10 – Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.
John 13:11 – For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean.
John 13:12 – So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?
John 13:13 – Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.
John 13:14 – If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.
John 13:15 – For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
John 13:16 – Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.
John 13:17 – If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.
John 13:18 – I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.
John 13:19 – Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.
John 13:20 – Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
The earthly ministry of Jesus was accomplished by largely traveling by “foot” from place to place. In this region of the world the roads were mostly dirt, and the “feet” of the travelers would be significantly made dirty with the loose dust, dirt, mud, etc. Therefore, it was customary and courteous of every house you entered for the servants of the homeowner to wash your feet. But notice that Jesus takes on the servant’s role and washes every foot of the twelve disciples. This is truly an amazing thing for the Spirit of God, the Creator of the universe to become a physical part of His physical creation and then to wash their feet, who does this?
This event demonstrates a great act of humility for God. But it also demonstrates one of His primary purposes for coming to the earth by figuratively informing them, that He was here to change their ways of life. Can you see the symbolism being communicated in this lesson? When we walk through our life choices with clean feet intentions, we are not setting our minds on committing evil. Look at these verses to help confirm this:
Proverbs 4:25 – Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.
Proverbs 4:26 – Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.
Proverbs 4:27 – Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.
There are numerous verses in the Bible like these. They all speak of human feet and the ways that they are pointed in to do evil or to do good. These are symbolic representations for us walking in love and peace towards others or walking in selfish self-serving intentions to do everything we can, including evil to others to enrich ourselves. These are the two paths of life that Jesus was speaking of in Matthew 7:12-14. Jesus is symbolically washing the disciples’ feet to teach them that He will direct them into a new living way, if they choose to follow Him.
Do you recognize the incredible “Peaceful” works of God that are being performed by God in person, to establish us back into His ways of “Peace”? God has made a personal visit on the earth, and said to them, “I will make your feet clean removing your sins, and I will guide you in a new way of life, by my Holy Spirit. If you go through the description again of the verses we just read in John, you should be able to see some of the symbolism being utilized. For example,
- Every disciple uncovered their bare feet by removing their shoes. This is symbolizing Christians taking off the old carnal selfish ways of the first man Adam.
- Then Jesus stoops down to each disciple, just as John said he was not worthy to do. Jesus doing this to each man individually teaches us Jesus was a sinless man/God who is worthy and able to do something wonderful for us. It also teaches us to be humble enough to serve those that do not deserve kindness.
- Then Jesus washed every sinful man’s foot one at a time. This signifies two things. First, the forgiveness of all past sins. Second, the removal of all future man’s sinful thoughts, spoken words, actions, intentions, desires and ways. Jesus accomplishes the first by the power of His shed blood (Colossians 1:14). Then Jesus accomplishes the second by the cleansing of their minds through the washing of the water of the Word of God (Ephesians 5:26, Romans 12:2).
- The entire symbolic process of what Jesus has done for us all in washing the disciples’ feet, is to change our death destiny direction following Satan who is leading the world into the wide “Path” to their destruction (Matthew 7:13). This is us taking off our old shoes (ways). Then Jesus must clean our dirty feet (ways to) sin to turn us around by our repentance and giving us a new desire to change directions. This is accomplished by us putting on the new man shoes (ways to walk righteously) that were representative of the “Gospel of Peace”. All of this places us upon His narrow new path that us being led by His Holy Spirit into everlasting life, salvation and righteousness in “Peace” with God.
That was a very fast overview of the major points. We just do not have the time to teach everything that is possible to say about this process God provided to turn us around in a completely new, different, and better way to live.
We are still missing a lot of definitions to the symbolism that is being taught to us by God. Remember, to remove our old man nature shoes is an expression describing us leaving behind our previous natural ways of thinking and acting. God is trying to teach us in all of this that our human ways of achieving victory over an enemy (Satan) is not His ways.
This is simply because our normal way of achieving victory over a human problem is us trying to eliminate a flesh enemy causing the problem. But this is not what God did with Satan, at all. The immediate removal of Satan, we will soon find would have been a completely illegal, unjust and unrighteous act of God, and would have violated God’s character traits of “Love” and “Peace”.
But it is still important to remember according to Romans 16:20, God’s spiritual warfare is completely focused upon the full defeat of the spirit enemy named Satan which He prophesied would occur in Genesis 3:15. Also do not forget that He was going to accomplish this through creating enmity between a spiritual woman and Satan. Hopefully, you understand that we are quickly learning who this woman represents, is the Church (Eklesia). But God is going to achieve this victory over His enemy by asking us firmly to change our ways and to cooperate with His powerful Holy Spirit inside us to accomplish this great victory. Let us look at what Jesus said about His walk with the Father to help us understand the example that He set for us to accomplish this.
John 5:19 – Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
This is an amazing verse. This verse reveals to us that Jesus even though He was God in the flesh, He was not in His omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent qualities. In fact, Philippians 2 teaches us that God set aside His deity powers to live (walk) life like a human. In doing this Jesus lived an example for us to follow and pursue after. Remember, Jesus said “I am the good shepherd” in John 10. This means as the “sheep” of God, who we are, we must follow His leading.
This is exactly what John 5:19 says Jesus did with His Father. Jesus declares to us that he was in cooperation and chose to remain in agreement only with His father’s words of instruction. This was Jesus living in Peace with His Father. And this is the exact pattern we can read about in Joshua 5 and 6 in the victory over Jericho. Just as God instructed Joshua to symbolically set aside his natural ways of the flesh, Jesus chose to do likewise to follow the Spirit of Peace. Hopefully, you already know Joshua in Hebrew is the same name Jesus in Greek. God did this to establish two examples to teach His ways, for us to follow.
Romans 8:6 – For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Wow! Here we go finding and discovering our life ways of God. We are to imitate the examples of Jesus’ ways, and we are instructed to take off the old unholy shoes worn by our previous old human self-centered ways of life. God is teaching us that we are to change out our ways of life by taking off the old man’s (Adam’s) ways and putting on the new man’s (Jesus’) ways of life. God is teaching us the ways to overcome our enemy Satan. When we do this, we will overcome Satan every time.
1 John 5:4 – For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
As you can “see” God has again promised the church a victory over Satan by exercising our faith in His Word of Instructions. God wrote us this book so that we might know and understand who He is and how He works always in “Peace”. By us following these new transformed ways we will win over our enemy Satan, because we have God’s help doing it through us. Praise the Lord!
Conclusion
God’s kind of real Shalom “Peace” is not the absence of all conflicts. Real Shalom Peace is the internal spiritual calmness and confidence in Jesus Christ, so that no matter what the enemy is trying to bring against you or do to you, you know God is with you and will cause you to win (1 Corinthians 15:57). Walking and living in real Peace, is also not avoiding your enemy. God did not choose to ignore Lucifer after sin was found in him, but how He planned to win through operating in “Peace” is much different than the “way” we would think He should have done it.
Living in “Peace” does not mean that God is doing nothing. In fact, as soon as Lucifer rebelled, God began to speak words that initiated His plan of victory (Isaiah 14:15). As we continue through this series of lessons, we will be seeing how God reveals to us His ways of speaking with authority causes Him to win over His enemy Satan. These are the ways of Shalom “Peace” in action. This also means what He says, and when He says it, matters greatly. We are discovering that the ways of “Peace” demonstrated by God are how He works even during major conflicts, and this is why He desires to teach us to do the same.
Amos 3:3 – Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
Here we find the main point of the lesson. If God is a God of Peace, which He is, and we are told to be imitators of God in Ephesians 5:1, this teaches us that we are supposed to walk like God walks, talk like God talks and live like God lives. And we are now seeing that all of these ways are done in Shalom “Peace”. By choosing to think and act like God, we are aligning our feet in the same direction as God desires us to travel with Him in. If we turn our feet off of the path (way) even a little bit, we are beginning to drift further and further off course from knowing God, hearing from God, and this causes us to be open to our enemies’ attack.
Yes, God says if 1 lost sheep wanders away, He would leave the 99 to find this lost one (Luke 15:4). But anytime we begin to stray we potentially open ourselves up to evil and this could allow Satan an opportunity to end our life. You see in Psalm 23 David wrote about walking with the good shepherd through the valley of the shadow of “death”. In this the sheep says, “I will fear no evil because you are with me, and your rod and your staff comfort me”. But notice this sheep has not left the shepherd while death surrounded them. What we are learning in these last days, is that we better stay close to our Shepherd, Jesus Christ always. We do this by “walking” in the same direction as He is leading. This means we are in “Peace” together and are not focused upon the evil that surrounds us being united with Him.
Are you beginning to see how God’s power is received and accessed through us abiding in His ways of Shalom “Peace”, which is found only by us choosing to remain in His presence? God operating in us and through us, leading us and instructing us, and Him helping us to change our ways of living brings us victory! Do you see how victory is achieved by us also walking by “faith” and not by human sense knowledge like our natural “sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7)? By us choosing to live in His kind of “Peace” we can more easily hear from God faster and more accurately. This is because we are tuned to the right frequency of “Love” and “Peace”.
God is broadcasting His direction and instruction on the channel of Love and Peace, and if we are not tuned to hear this channel we will probably be in tune with “fear”, “worry” and “doubt” being broadcast all around us from Satan. God has the advantage because if you are saved, He lives in our spirit inside our body. But even saved humans can too easily drift in our minds to focus only upon the flesh circumstances where Satan influences, rather than to remain n “Peace” thinking on the Spirit of God inside.
The promise God gave to the church in Romans 16:20 guarantees us the victory over God’s enemy. This was our key lesson verse today which introduced the subject of Satan as our enemy that will be defeated by God using our “feet”. We know this enemy Satan is the ancient serpent that caused sin to enter and reign in our current world (Genesis 3:15). This is your first indicator today, that God’s ways of “Peace” are not our normal human ways (Isaiah 55:8).
We learn in Romans 12:2 that we can begin the process to becoming transformed out of our old worldly “ways” (path) into God’s new spiritual “ways” (pathway) of life, by simply “renewing” our minds. This means we do what God told Joshua in Joshua 1:8, “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written there in and then you shall make your way prosperous, and you will have good success”. This is another way of saying God will cause us to “WIN”, if we do exactly what He said to do.
Luke 21:26 – Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
This statement was given by Jesus in Luke 21:26 warning us of the end times that we are living within, now. There are many descriptions of things that will cause “fear”. Satan will be hard at work trying to move every human into the pathway of “Fear”. Perhaps you have heard one statement from politicians that says, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”, and thus they are continually trying to create a crisis to control the agenda and lifestyles of humans.
“Fear” is the opposite force of “Peace” and “Faith”. According to God’s Word in 1 John 4:18, only God’s real “Love” will cast out all fears that will be trying to come against us to make us fall into this trap. This is why we have emphasized God’s powers of “Love” and “Peace” ruling in our heart today. They go hand in hand to lead us into victory.
Uh oh? There appears that there are a lot of Christians “not” walking in “Peace” today. It looks like they have forgotten to put “Peace” on their feet as they are walking through this world. Any fear, any worry, any doubt, any anxiety, etc. are all indicators that we are not wearing our shoes of “Peace”. How can we reduce our fears to zero and increase our “Peace” to the maximum? God reveals this in a verse written by Peter:
2 Peter 1:2 – Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
God reveals to us that we can greatly increase our “Peace” simply by greatly increasing our knowledge of Him. This means the more we learn, study, focus upon, and commit to memory His Word will cause us to live, walk and operate in His Shalom Peace Ways. This is confirmed in Isaiah 26 where God says:
Isaiah 26:3 – Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
This verse just said, “I will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed (focused) on me”. If we are constantly reading and thinking on God’s Words, He increases our awareness of His presence. His presence awareness is what helps us to remain in “Peace” through any storm.
Did you notice the words “perfect peace” in Isaiah 26:3? What is “Perfect Peace”? This phrase is formed by doubling the Hebrew word H7965 transliterated as “Shalom” meaning “Peace”. Translators could have said, “I will keep him in peace, peace, whose mind is stayed on me”. Or they could have said, “I will keep him in great double peace whose mind is stayed upon me”. But I believe what God is saying is, “If your mind and thoughts inside remain focused on me, your internal spirit will be in total Peace. This total peace will cause God to work in our external circumstances to bring them back and return them into Peace also.
This may sound strange to some, but God hears your thoughts. I believe Satan cannot hear your thoughts, but God repeatedly demonstrates in the Bible that He knows every thought. This means if we are worrying, we have just left the “pathway” of “Peace”. And “worry” is just one kind of negative thought that can defeat us.
This is amazing if we can see it and apply it into our lives. When we choose to remain at “rest”, and in “Peace” within our spirit, God’s Spirit of Peace can speak His Words to us and through us to nullify the enemy’s chaos around us. Do you recall the situation where “Jesus” was sleeping in the boat as the disciples were going to the other side of the sea? A huge storm came upon them. But was Jesus ever worried? Jesus didn’t even wake up from His sleep. This is an example from God how we should just let “Peace” rule no matter what.
But the disciples jumped into the spiritual boat of “Fear” and believed they were about to die. They awakened Jesus and accused Him of not caring! Wow! Did you know when you live in “Peace” some people will think you are crazy and could be someone that cares nothing about what is happening in the world? What did Jesus do after they had awakened Him? He looked at the wind and rebuked it and then said to the “waves”, “Peace Be Still”. Wow Again!
This just made the disciples more “fearful” with them saying, “Who is this man, that even the wind and the waves, obey Him?” This was said directly after Jesus had just rebuked them saying, “Why are you so fearful, how is it that you have no faith” (Mark 4:40)? Jesus just confirmed that none of His disciples were internally in their spirit in agreement with Him. This also confirmed because the disciples were in “fear” they were not in “Faith” or “Peace”.
Uh oh? Jesus just said if we had just believed what He said and also remembered the power of His words, we could have remained in “Peace” and overcame the storm. He also implied that this could be done by speaking a command in “Faith” to the wind to stop, just as He demonstrated to us (Mark 4:40).
Jesus just taught us a valuable lesson of God’s “Peace” at work. Jesus had such great internal spiritual “Peace”, even a huge natural storm had no effect on Him. But this lesson also showed the negative effects of having no “Peace” and walking in fear. It is very clear to me that Jesus was wearing His spiritual shoes of “Peace” in the chaotic circumstances caused by Satan to kill them. And this situation was defeated by Jesus’ Walk in “Peace” through exercising His “Faith” by speaking “Words” (2 Corinthians 4:13). Let’s examine another New Covenant example, this time after Jesus was raised from the dead, to prove the church was supposed to follow Jesus’ example.
Do you remember when “Paul” was arrested and was being taken to Rome to be tried by Caesar in Acts 27? The ship that Paul was on encountered another huge storm. Everyone on the ship was also in “fear” of certain death like the disciples were. In Acts 27:23, Paul informs the fearful that he had a message from an angel sent by the LORD. God sent this angel to tell Paul there would be no loss of life. But before this Jesus personally appeared to Paul and said to him, “As you testified in Jerusalem, so you must bear witness in Rome” (Acts 23:11. Therefore, Paul had it from the mouth of God, he was going to make it to Rome.
When you hear God speak, what should happen? We should believe whatever He says. This hearing should cause believing and we should have “faith” (Romans 10:17). This was the same for the disciples when Jesus said, “Let us go to the other side”. Jesus did not say, “Let us try to make it”, or “If we are lucky, we will get to the other side”. What Jesus said, set and guaranteed the outcome before it happened.
Also, Jesus had great confidence that no storm was going to kill Him, because He knew God said He would be hung on a cross. Therefore, knowing and believing the Words of God, causes the other attempts of Satan to become laughable. This was the same for “Paul” and he had great confidence in God’s words and knew he would make it to Rome, even if the ship did not.
As we should remember from Acts 27, the ship sank and they lost all the cargo, but all the ship’s men made it to shore. However, on the island of Malta, Paul was building a fire and picked up a pile of sticks that had a deadly viper in it. This beast bit Paul and everyone was expecting Paul to drop dead almost immediately. Did you notice the “fear” in everyone else? But Paul just shook the beast off in the fire and acted like it was nothing. How could Paul do all of this?
It is because Paul was in “Peace” on the inside in his spirit because he was believing God. It really did not matter what the external circumstances of this world were trying to do to him to kill him. Paul was walking by faith not knowing what was going to happen next, but He knew what God said to him would happen. This caused him to stay in Shalom “Peace”. Is this amazing news, or what?
Can you see how this fits what God said through Peter? “Grace and Peace be multiplied to you through the Knowledge of God”. You can only get grace and peace by listening to the Word of God which allows you the choice to believe. But then notice that Jesus taught us in Mark 4 about the “Sowing of the Word of God?” Jesus said, “some seed fell on wayside soil and the birds of the air came and devoured it”. Birds represent the devil and demons.
How does Satan steal the Word of God out of the hearts of people? One tactic for this theft was performed easily because these were people who did not hear correctly to understand God’s words. Remember all thoughts are words in the spirit realm. They can come from God, Satan, or your human desires. Therefore, managing our thoughts closely is very essential for staying in “Peace”.
Another Satan tactic is to just blind the human mind with other distracting thoughts to keep a person from understanding what was said. This can be done with rapid fire thoughts keeping them from thinking about the Truth that they are hearing. A distracting thought could be any kind of subtle thought of deception, a distraction coming from the darkness of this world.
Think about this, how many times have you been reading the Bible and suddenly get a thought about doing something else that you need to do, like fix your hair, clean the house, exercise, call somebody, etc. What about a sudden desire for sweets, salty snacks, or other food you crave? Do these feelings ever come upon you and suddenly you must have them? These are all clever subtle tactics to keep your mind occupied away from receiving the Truth. But Satan needs other tactics if someone really understands what Jesus said to them after these words are understood enough to cause joy to rise in their spirits.
As you have seen there was three examples, that we just went through and two of these were “storms” and the third was a physical attack of Satan (a viper, serpent). This could also be like a physical fatal illness like cancer. This could just be a physical hidden poison secretly being given to you in your medicine or shot. No matter what the plan of the enemy, it can be nullified if you remain in “Peace” and “Trust” God to cause His Word to come to pass in your life.
What has God spoken to you? If you know for sure it was God, write them on big pieces of paper and place them all over your house or wherever you live. Keep them as the focus of your heart, and these Words will help you remain in Peace.
This is why we are studying this subject today. This is why we are increasing our knowledge of the God kind of Peace. This knowledge “will” cause our “Peace” levels to drive out the fears that the enemy is trying to get us to buy into. It is very interesting to know that God’s letters written to the church almost always begins with a greeting that contains the connected word “Grace” and “Peace”. Check out this example:
Romans 1:7 – To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We can easily see the source of all “Grace” and “Peace” in our lives comes only from knowing God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We should know that God says in Romans 5:1, that we have Peace with Him because of His works accomplished in Jesus Christ’s by His shed blood. This teaches us that God has reconciled us back into a right relationship with Him and this knowledge alone should increase our “Peace” when talking with Him, to receive all His Grace.
How is Your Peace Today?
Today is the anniversary of 9/11. Perhaps you remember where you were this day? Perhaps you watched it on television happening as I did. This is a very sobering real moment in history that should make anyone think, and ask the question what if? What if it was you in the planes that crashed killing everyone instantly? What if it was you above the flames in the towers? Would you have jumped? What would you be thinking in your fall to your death? Do you ever think about death?
Do you have any feelings of uncertainty? Do you know what would happen if you died today? Where would you spend eternity? Maybe you do not believe in life after death. Are you sure? How can you ever be certain? Have you died before? Have you seen the other side? Can you guarantee there is no God? Is there any certainty that hell does not exist? Can you prove it? If you do not know the answers to these questions, there is no way that you have any “Peace” with dying. Wait, till death suddenly stares you in the face, and then ask these questions very quickly. Unfortunately, death does not always give you time to ask these questions.
However, if you believe Jesus is God and He died for you and did not stay dead but rose again to be alive forevermore, and then you have never received Jesus as your Lord, you know that you have no real Peace. If desire to give your life to Him and allow Him to come into your heart, He is offering you this opportunity by calling you to come out of the world so that He can give you His Spirit of supernatural Peace. Click the link below to go to the link and give your life to Christ, so that He can give you His eternal “Peace”. This “Peace” can keep you no matter what you are currently facing in this life.
Thank you for reading and studying the Bible here with us. We love you and care enough to spend the time to help you learn about God and His risen from the dead Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Until next time, be blessed and remain in Peace, the devil will have other plans to try to get into fear sooner than you may think. But you will overcome them by walking in “Peace”.