God’s Peace Is for You
Breaking Free from Aggravation
How often have you said or thought those words? I know I’ve felt this way many times. But I’ve learned that we can come to a point in our lives where we don’t experience being aggravated and frustrated every day. In fact, aggravated and frustrated is not the condition God wants us to live in. Let me show you what I mean.
In John 14:27 (AMPC), Jesus says, Peace I leave with you: My [own] peace I now give…to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]
Now, there’s a worldly peace we have when everything is going our way. But the peace Jesus gives is a totally different quality of peace than what the world gives. It’s a peace that passes our understanding; it makes us peaceful when all natural reasoning says we should be upset.
You Can Decide to Be Peaceful
We can make the decision to stop allowing ourselves to get upset, aggravated and frustrated. Although we may think, I can’t help it, according to Jesus, we can help it. He offers us peace that can keep us from getting this way.
It’s important for us to realize that we have a responsibility to not let our hearts be troubled or afraid. We will never break loose from anything we’re struggling with until we take personal responsibility for where we are now.
Most people just want to blame someone or something else for their problems – a bad childhood, their lack of education, their nationality, their personality – and make excuses for the way they are. But we can’t let the things from our past, or present, become an excuse to stay there. Believe me…I know.
I grew up in a home full of turmoil. It was a very unstable, unpleasant atmosphere, filled with alcohol, anger and all kinds of abuse. However, I learned that I had to take responsibility for my actions if my life would ever be different than what I experienced throughout my childhood.
I remember when I realized that living with frustration, aggravation and worry really just did me no good at all. All I ever got from being this way was a headache, a back ache, a grouchy attitude, and regret for saying things I never should have said.
As I began to take responsibility and say, “God will help me to do something about this if I really want Him to,” things began to change. It wasn’t easy and it didn’t happen overnight, but as I trusted God more and more to help me, and then made right choices to act like Christ instead of the way I felt like acting when I was upset or didn’t get my way, I changed. I learned to live with the peace Jesus gives.
God’s Peace Is for YOU!
And you can too. We can have anything God says we can have. He is no respecter of persons. The promises of God are for “whosoever will” (see Acts 10:34-35). We’re all “whosoevers,” but not all of us are willing to do what we need to do to inherit the promises of God. We may be willing to hear the truth, but are we willing to do what it says?
I want to challenge you to decide right now to be determined and persistent in seeking God and being obedient to what He’s telling you to do. Our enemy, the devil, is persistent and will do whatever he can to wear us out and keep us from God’s will. But we need to have the same tenacity in Christ to never give up – by God’s grace – and make him sorry he ever bothered us.
Remember, as a born-again Christian, you are full of the Spirit of the living God, who makes us more than conquerors. We should plan ahead to stay peaceful during trials. Everything is not going to go our way all the time, and when it doesn’t, we can be prepared to stay in peace in the midst of it all.
Let your confession be: “With God’s help, I don’t have to be aggravated or frustrated. I can stay calm and hold my peace.” The ability to display stability and remain calm in troubled times can be one of our greatest testimonies to a troubled world.
