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In the headlines

“The search for peace”

“Northern Ireland Peace Process”

“India wants peace with its neighbours”

“Bush and Blair want peace”

These are just a handful of headlines from the same week, to illustrate that the world is looking for peace.

But where did it all go wrong?

The Bible – God’s word, has the answers.

Euphrates

When God made man, he made a paradise for him to live in. One of the four rivers in Eden, was the Euphrates (Genesis 2v14). It was here that man first disobeyed God, and peace with God was broken. With this crucial peace gone, peace with man also broke down, and the first murder soon took place.

Babel

As time went on, far from evolving, man drifted further from God, and invented religion to try and fill the spiritual vacuum he felt. (Genesis 11v1-8). Because of their arrogance, God thwarted their construction efforts by introducing language barriers for the first time. Religion has always failed to bring peace.

No God, no peace

History and the Bible give ample evidence to man’s inability to live at peace with each other. But there is another peace crisis – within each one of us. The Bible says:

”There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked” (Isaiah 48v22)

This includes us all, as we are without exception far short of God’s perfect standard (Romans 3v23).

Know God, know peace

And yet God wants us to be at peace with Him. As we all know, a heavy price has to be paid for peace – and so God sacrificed His only Son.

The Bible says that the Lord Jesus, when He died

“made peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1v20)

There simply is no other way for peace to be obtained, than for the big issue of our sin to be dealt with. True peace is to be found in a person – Jesus Christ.

Peace is individual

Yet the peace that God offers is not on a universal basis. The time will come when God will destroy this world of war and sin, to create a new world of peace and right. But then we would be too late. The Bible makes clear, that this peace must be obtained personally:

“Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5v1)

This means that God asks us to place complete faith in His Son Jesus Christ, and own His authority as Lord.

The Peace of God

The peace God promises for those who believe in His Son, is uniquely secure:

”The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4v7)

The God of Peace

The Bible makes it clear, that the way to know the peace of God which was lost in Iraq six thousand years ago, is to know the God of Peace.

To Christians in Greece, Paul writes:

“the God of peace shall be with you” (Philippians 4:9)