Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 157
TRANSCRIPT
Is it OK to disagree with the dictionary? Well, I am going to when it comes to the word peace. According to Dictionary.com, peace means – the non-warring condition of a nation or group, a state of mutual harmony between people groups, a state of tranquility or serenity, or the cessation of or freedom from any strife or dissension. It is wonderful when those things happen, but can you experience peace even when life is a mess? In this podcast, I want to look at peace from a biblical point of view and as usual, I have to mix some RTF in with it.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. Today we are experiencing the exact opposite of the dictionary.com definition of peace. There are several places in the world where there is warring between nations and people groups. Recently the USA felt like they were forced to attack another nation in order to provide peace in the world. There are wars in Ukraine, war in Israel, nation against nation around the world.
Here in the USA, there is strife and dissension between people. There have been riots and shootings on a regular basis during the last few months. Even the weather has caused tragedy with the flooding in Texas. I guess what I am trying to say is that you don’t need to look very far to find turmoil and tragedy.
How can we as children of God find peace in the midst of all that is going on around the world? The peace that is available to us is not a cessation of conflict. It is a supernatural kind of peace that can only come through our relationship with Jesus. Jesus said in John 16:33,
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
It is peace that is ours because we are not of this world.
The foundation for our supernatural peace is found in John 17:6 which says,
“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” Jesus also says in John 15:19, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
Jesus made the point that the moment we accept Jesus as our savior and become children of God, we are no longer of this world. Our citizenship changes from citizen of the world to citizen of heaven. We still live here on planet earth, but it is no longer our home. I remember hearing people say things like this is not our home, and thinking they were nuts. Of course this is our home, it is where we live, right? Yes, it is where we live for a short period of time until we exit this life for eternity. It is so easy to look at the 80-90+ years we live here on planet earth as our home. It is not our home. It is only the warm-up act for eternity. I read a book where the main character was an angel. During the story the angel would have to leave Heaven and go to earth to help various people. The phrase the author used for going to earth caught me off guard when I first read it. He would say, “And the angel entered time.” Time does not exist in heaven. Time is only a constraint here on earth. WOW! That thought blew me away. I had always sort of feared eternity in heaven because it was such a long time. If time does not exist in heaven, then eternity is no longer a time period. It is simply existing with Jesus. As I write this, I am having a hard time describing my thoughts because I want to use words that are related to time. What is it going to be like living without time? I think it will be awesome, even though I can’t comprehend it at this “time”. Outside of time is where our home really is. Yet we can begin to change our thinking to experience God’s peace right now. Colossians 3:2 says,
“Set your minds on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Setting our minds on things above takes us to our real home. In our real home we will find peace.
This past week there were floods in Texas that killed over 100 people, several of those were little girls attending a Christians girls summer camp. As I watch the news coverage it is hard to have human peace at the incredible loss of life. Yet the kind of peace that God gives is in spite of human tragedy. Jesus said in John 14:27-28,
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Worldly peace is based on the lack of conflict or tranquility and harmony. Jesus’ kind of peace is not like that. His supernatural peace goes beyond human understanding. One of the quotes from the parents of a little girl who was swept away and drowned by the flood waters told me that these people understood Jesus’ kind of peace. They said something to the effect that they do not understand why this happened to their sweet little girl, but they held onto the hope that they will see her again in heaven. They were experiencing a supernatural kind of peace that can only come from setting their minds on the things above.
I think I have mentioned in previous podcasts that the walk of faith is not easy. We must be diligent to see more than just our physical eyes. The things we see with our physical eyes are temporary. According to 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 which says,
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.“
That is very true yet at the same time very challenging. This verse contains a key to our being able to experience peace in the midst of life’s storms. The key to experiencing peace comes by fixing our eyes on what is unseen rather than on what is seen. This is where the battle of faith is not easy.
Steve and Sandy had been married for 25 years when Sandy was diagnosed with cancer. Their lives and dreams came to a screeching halt. Sandy had an aggressive type of breast cancer that required surgery as well as aggressive chemotherapy. Steve had been pretty successful in life, so money was not a problem, but he had to give up his successful business as an attorney to take care of his wife full time. Steve had a choice to make. He could set his mind on cancer and the life that he and Sandy had lost together, or he could set his mind on things above. Will setting his mind on things above make the devastation to Sandy’s body caused by the cancer cease? No, but it will allow Steve to enter into something he never expected during this horrible season: peace.
One of the lies that Steve had to break was that peace and joy were only available due to your circumstances. While he and Sandy enjoyed the benefits of his successful career, peace and joy were based on their comfortable lifestyle and the benefits that came with that success. When Sandy’s illness progressed, they were no longer able to do the things they had enjoyed in the past. Steve received RTF ministry and broke the lie he had believed about peace and joy only coming from pleasant circumstances, and God met him in a powerful way to show Steve that the peace He gives is not based on circumstance. The peace Jesus gives is not the kind of peace the world knows. It is the kind of peace you can experience in the middle of a fight with cancer.
One of Steve’s favorite verses now is Romans 15:13 which says,
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Another way that RTF ministry can help you experience peace is by bringing healing to your broken heart. This is done by taking your broken heart to Jesus. So often we try to ignore the hurt and hope that it will go away by itself. We have believed the old saying that time heals all wounds. Many times, the opposite is true. If you have a cut that gets dirt in it, time does not heal all wounds. If the cut is not taken care of properly, infection sets in that will cause you severe problems. The same is true with wounds to the heart. They do not go away by themselves, and more times than not, they become infected and cause bigger problems.
Another struggle we have in dealing with a broken heart is believing that if I open the wound again it will hurt too much, and I won’t be able to handle it. It will not be worth the pain of opening the wound up once again. The problem with that belief is that the wound is already hurting you on an ongoing basis. By opening the wound to Jesus, He can bring healing to the hurt. Oftentimes it is these wounds to the heart that keep people from experiencing peace. We ministered to a lady named Martha who believed both of these lies. She believed that by ignoring the hurt it would go away. She also thought that if she opened her wounded heart again to experience the pain, she would not be able to recover. The pain would be so great that she would not survive. She was brave enough to trust Jesus and the RTF ministry process and told Jesus about what caused her hurt. As the ministers, it was very hard for us to hear about such a devastating event. As we helped her to give all of her hurts and negative emotions to Jesus, we asked her what Jesus was doing with the hurts and negative emotions. She began to laugh as she described that as she gave her negative hurts and emotions to Jesus it was dark and stormy. As He took her hurts and negative emotions and smashed them in His hands, they turned into Sunshine that made all of the darkness and rain go away. We asked how her heart felt now, and again with a huge smile on her face, she said, Peaceful.
I want to close this podcast with Philippians 4:6-7.
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all people. The Lord is nearby. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
PRAYER
Father God, I thank You that Your peace is available to us. That Your peace can guard our hearts and minds. Please help us know what is getting in the way of our experiencing Your peace. Father, show us any lies we are believing. Show us any wounded places that are stealing our peace. Would you reveal on an experiential level that this world is not our home but that our home is with You so we can set our minds on things above.