Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Isaiah 48: 18, NKJV.
Dear God, there is such a need for Your peace in our world today. Please help us to acquaint ourselves with the Prince of Peace, as we study Your Word. This we ask in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
One of the greatest needs in our world today, is the need for peace. We need peace in our individual lives. The nations of the world need peace. There is a need for peace in our churches. Peace is needed at home, and in the workplace. The world at large seems to be suffering from a famine – not for food – but for peace.
We may have heard the phrase “seeking love in the wrong places.” But love is not the only thing people seek in the wrong places. We also seek joy, and knowledge, and salvation, to name a few, in the wrong places. Today I am going to add peace, to the list.
I wonder why we have lost our sense of direction when seeking the most important things of life. What has caused this confusion that has become an epidemic in our world? Could the cause be found in a trait that became a part of our genes, when the serpent convinced mother Eve that the fruit that God had said should not be eaten, “was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise” (Genesis 3: 6) ? Could we still, after more that six thousand years, be trying to prove God wrong?
Our text for today, states very clearly that, had the people of Israel hearkened to God’s commandments, their “peace” would have been “like a river.” Perhaps many, like myself, have sat and watched a river flowing slowly, and felt peace within our own souls. But you may argue that a river also has under-currents. True. But the good news is that God would have been the “Author and Finisher” (Hebrews 12: 2) of their peace. They would have been guaranteed peace, even in the midst of the storms of life.
Like Israel of old, God’s people in the twenty-first century, have forfeited that promised peace, by seeking it in the wrong places. God describes the problem this way: ” ‘“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water” ‘ ” (Jeremiah 2: 13). Humanity’s formula for peace is deficient. It is a conditional, passing, peace. It has no “holding” (lasting) capacity. It is as broken as the human beings who create it.
So why not go to the right place if you feel a need for peace in your life today. Jesus, who cannot lie, made the following promise to you and to me: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14: 27). Emphasis provided. You can take Him at His Word!
Why not get acquainted with Him (Job 22: 21) today – and experience His peace!