12 Principles for Peace Beyond Understanding

“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 them be afraid.” John 14:27

Grasp, guard and protect peace at all costs, as this will help us in our personal lives and also helps in maintaining a healthy relationship with one another.

In our world, there is a longing for peace. Even in schools, they practice mindfulness sessions to try and break down student stress, yet that is not helpful in the long term.

Jesus promises us in the scriptures, that He will leave us with a gift: His Peace.

It is so important for us to understand, that the enemy is not after our job, position, neither is he looking for our house to live in, or any of our materialistic things, but he is after our peace of mind. If our peace relies on that stuff, then he will take away that stuff.
He just uses those things to access your mind & when he has access to your mind, he can take away your peace.

To grow peace in our lives, we need to practice certain principles:

1. Keep our mind stayed on Him.

Isaiah 26:3-4 exhorts, You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock. We mustn’t focus on our problems, on the person who annoys, the bank account, or the angry spouse. We need to keep our mind stayed on Jesus.

Remember the disciples in the storm? Jesus was on the boat with them! Jesus was taking a nap but the disciples freaked out at the storm. When they woke Jesus, He did not freak out. He told the storm, “Peace, be still”. Many of us get into panic mode when things go wrong. Instead, we must get the mindset of Jesus and be still.

Paul taught the church to grow and maintain peace:

Phil 4: 4-9 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do…Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus…Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honourable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.

2. Always be full of joy in the Lord and rejoice.

When the enemy comes against us, we must stay joyful. Cultivate the habit of being full of joy. We can be highly affected by tiny problems that come our way. Consider who is with you, the Lord, and rejoice!

3. Let everyone see how considerate you are in all you do.

We must practice fairness, kindness, justice as His children. We need to revere the Lord who is with you by our every deed.

4. Don’t worry about anything.

Worry brings nothing but grey hair. Crying and whining get us nothing. Instead, we need to cast all our burdens to Jesus and let that worry go.

5. Tell God everything.

Know the opinion of God in every station of your life. Keep exposing your fears to God, that He may deal with our issues.
Try to get to the root issues of why things are happening, why our heart is disturbed, why we have anxiety.

6. Thank Him.

Many Christians lack dignity when fear and problems confound them. In trials, we must thank God for all He has already blessed us with! There are many reasons to be grateful for. Maintain an attitude of gratitude.
When the enemy attacks your peace, practice the power of thanks. It is a phenomenal posture of worship that defeats fear.

7. Fix our thoughts on what is true.

When the enemy throws lies, we need to fix our thoughts on what is true. Negative rejecting thoughts are from the enemy. God speaks words of affirmation and love over us, not condemnation. The truth of the word is our reference point.

8. Keep looking at the honourable.

Honour with intentionality. We must reject any dishonourable thought as untrue and fix our mind on that which God honours.

9. Focus our mind on what is right.

Best practices are girded by the grace of God. Though we are flawed and don’t love as Christ loves, we are trying our best. People will always disappoint but Jesus never will. Doing right must hold our gaze.

10. Fix your eyes on what is pure.

The peace that Jesus received from His Father is the same peace that Jesus gives to us. The enemy will put impure thoughts in our head to access our mind and take our peace. When we have these thoughts, we may be filled with guilt and condemnation. We must guard our eyes and maintain our focus on godly things. If you feed on junk, the temptation will be always present.

11. Maintain thoughts on what is admirable, excellent and full of praise.

If the enemy makes us feel unworthy, fat, stupid, we may lose our peace. We can’t let the world define us of our value. We must fix our thoughts on what is lovely. Any other negative thought is not from God. In Christ, we have the power to carry peace wherever we go. We are wonderfully and fearfully made.

12. The God of peace will be with you.

We carry the Presence of Peace. We must speak the peace of God and fill our every space where God has placed us. If Jesus could transfer His peace to His disciples, we can transfer peace to our storms, to our workspace, to our emotions. We must speak peace from a place of peace as we keep our mind on Christ, who is Peace.

The enemy will try anything and everything just to get a reaction from you. But you have to maintain peace. Our victory doesn’t happen when the storm is over. Our victory happens when we resist the enemy and maintain our peace despite whatever provocation.

We have the power to shift the atmosphere, because we carry peace wherever we go, as we are called to bring peace in the midst of this broken world.

Our peace is a gift from our KING.
Make use of this treasure.

Colossians 3:15 “And let the peace that comes from Christ, rule in your hearts. You are called to live in peace.”

RESPOND IN PEACE.