I GIVE YOU MY PEACE

I GIVE YOU MY PEACE

John 14:27   ²⁷ Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Right before Jesus ascended back to heaven, he was saying, I am leaving My peace with you, not the kind of peace the world gives, so you don’t need to be afraid or let your heart be troubled.

There is a vast difference in Peace with God, which all believers should have, and the peace of God[GF1] . The of which Jesus speaks of here, the peace of the world is only surface or temporal peace.

The peace give by Christ Jesus is in the heart, the peace of God heals the troubled heart and takes away fear.

Philippians 4:6-7   ⁶ Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

⁷ And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

We are not to worry about anything. Prayer and supplication which means, a humble request or a petition to God with Thanksgiving presents the cure for worry. Which is a believing prayer. This speaks of all thing’s material and physical as well as spiritual.

The peace of God as we stated before is a sanctifying peace, which is higher than the way we think. It is way beyond human comprehension, which passes all natural understanding.

This understanding will keep your hearts and minds because of what Jesus did at the cross

Romans 16:20     ²⁰ And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

Everyone who trust Jesus and what he has done at the cross is guaranteed victory and in all things. At the cross we received the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. This grace we have is available for all believers.

Philippians 4:9   ⁹ Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

Everything you both learned and received that Jesus taught on, the God of peace that passes all natural understanding. If our faith is properly placed in the cross and remains in the cross.

1 Corinthians 14:33   ³³ For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

The Holy Spirit will never contradict himself. These instructions given by Paul pertain to all churches and not only at the church of Corinth.

Romans 5:1-2   5 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

² By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

This is the only way we can be justified by faith in Christ, this is justifying peace, which also gives us access to the goodness of God where in alone can we stand and rejoice in the hope of glory.

Our faith in Christ Jesus always brings glory to God. Anything else that brings glory to self, God can never accept.

Romans 8:5-6   ⁵ For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

⁶ For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

This refers to the believers trying to live for the Lord by means other than faith in the cross. Those who place their faith in Christ and the cross, do so exclusively. They are doing what the spirit desires, which in itself can bring victory.

This doesn’t refer to watching too much television as some might think, but rather it is trying to live for God outside of His order. The results of this will be sin and separation from God.

Gods prescribed order is the cross. Being spiritual minded is life and peace. This puts a demand on our constant faith in his word and the finished work of the cross, which is the way of the Holy Spirit. 

2 Peter 1:2   ² Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

This is sanctifying grace and sanctifying peace. All of this is made available through what Jesus did at the finished work of the cross.

Our love of and belief in Jesus is our peace, when the finished work was done, we were granted peace from God. it is by the atonement that reconciled men back to God.

Having slain the enmity, Jesus removed the barrier between God and sinful man, he bridge the gap for us to be able to have a relationship with the father.

John 20:19-21   ¹⁹ Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

²⁰ And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.

²¹ Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

The fear expressed here pertained to the idea or thought that the religious authorities having now murdered Jesus may very well try to do the same to his closest followers. The day of Pentecost would remove this fear.

When Jesus stood in the midst of them and said to them, peace be unto you, the bible gives no information as to how Jesus appeared before them like this, except when we get our glorified body, we will be like him.

Jesus showed them his hands and his side to prove he was not a spirit, that is when the peace began to come. They knew Jesus was alive again. He then told them peace be unto you.

This is said again by design. The first time Jesus said peace be unto you, was given to all who were assembled. A new revelation, the second “peace be unto you” was a summons to service as we shall see.

When Jesus says, my father has sent me, even so I send you. This was not a suggestion; it was a command. Even to this day for all who have made Jesus Lord of their life.

Even so I send you pertains to the great commission of taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. Remember there is a great difference between peace with God and the peace of God. peace with God is knowing him and knowing that you are saved by accepting his son as savior.

The peace of God is Gods sanctifying peace, which means he has set you apart from the evil things of this world, especially the wrong way of thinking. This sanctifying peace also passes all understanding. This peace belongs to all believers.

THE WORD AND THE IMAGE OF GOD IN YOU

                   THE WORD AND THE IMAGE OF GOD IN YOU

Sometimes we think, I am going to turn over a new leaf in my life. I am going to make some changes.

We get all excited, ready to shake off those bad habits that have been haunting us. We want to step into Gods best. Then something happens to change it all.

Our determination weakens, our new leaf begins to look similar to our old leaf, suddenly we are right back where we started.

Nothing has changed and I’m starting to doubt if things will ever change.

This has happened to all of us more times than we would like to admit. It doesn’t need to happen again.

God has given us the power to make permanent changes in our lives and in our circumstances. If we understand an important principal. It is the principal of inner image.

Ephesians 5:1-2    5 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;

² And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

When God created the earth, he took the principal of His inner image and added faith and the power of His words.

If we are going to imitate our heavenly Father we must put the principal of His inner image to work.

Don’t waste your time trying to dream up an inner image all on your own. That is nothing more than positive thinking.

What you need is to use a basis for your inner image and for the words you speak to be the word of God. The word has supernatural power.

Proverbs 18:21   ²¹ Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

When you make Jesus the Lord of your life, you receive not power but authority in his name. the words you speak are so powerful that you can speak life or death to both your physical body, your soul, and your spiritual life.

We must understand what this verse is representing before you speak. God hears you; Satan hears you and every demon hears you. never speak negative. This will cause demonic forces to take action in your life.

Fill your words with faith and speak it out. It will work to change your circumstances as surely as it did for God himself.

Romans 4:17   ¹⁷ (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

Which means your words can change things which don’t exist in the natural realm by transferring those things from the supernatural into existence by faith. We as Christians should be living on the fact of what God says we can do, not on what we think we cannot change.

When God wanted light He said, let there be light. The words he spoke were directly related to his inner image.

He used his words to get that image from the inside of himself to the outside.

Words are powerful, they are containers that carry faith, and love. Words can also carry fear and hate. Words are so important that they can determine our eternal destiny.

The authority we have to speak words is not had by any other creature on earth. Words can destroy or they can create.

They take an inner image and project it to the outside world. Once you understand this principal you can put your inner image to work in your life.

You may be working to be a winner while seeing yourself as a loser. You may want to know how you can change that. You change it with the word of God.

Our words not only release the creative forces of faith, they also produce images in our heads. When you hear the word cat your mind forms a picture of a cat.

What we are talking about here is getting your inner image lined up with the word of God.

John 1:1-4   1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

² The same was in the beginning with God.

³ All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

⁴ In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

All things were made by the word.

Hebrews 11:3   ³ Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at Gods command. That what we see now did not come from anything that can be seen.

Everything that is, or has been, or ever will be, was brought about either directly or indirectly by the word of God. Words are packed with faith.

In fact, that faith is the energy that is in the word that gives it the power to bring itself to pass.

Isaiah 55:11    ¹¹ So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Gods word is a living thing. It is alive with Gods own faith. By the power of the Holy Spirit, you have faith inside of you as a born-again believer.

When your inner image matches Gods word then your faith can produce the end result that God desires for it to produce.

But you must realize that when you put these principals to work in your life, you are going to run into some heavy resistance from Satan.

He will do all he can to stop you because as a co-worker with God you become Satan’s enemy.

For us to become image minded we must first become word minded. Then we must believe by faith that Gods word is truth.

It’s the truth of Gods word that becomes effective when we believe by faith. Faith is the substance that moves things from your image on the inside of you to the physical outside of you.

It moves things that are not, to the things that are.

Hebrews 11:1    Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

For all this to happen you must always be righteous conscious. “Standing in righteousness”