Silas
Beloved of All
Thank you for trusting us with what is on your heart even though you have left it unspoken. God knows it fully. He knows you by name, He knows the situation you are carrying, the pressures and questions that surround it, and the thoughts you have not put into words. Scripture says His understanding is without limit, that He knows the number of the stars and calls each one by name, and He also knows those who put their trust in Him. You have a place to run when trouble comes, for the name of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous find safety there.
I want to encourage you about the difference between peace with God and the peace of God, because both are needed. Peace with God comes only one way, through the blood of Jesus Christ when you surrender your life to Him. There is no other way to be made right with God, and no amount of trying harder or doing good works can earn it. It is by His grace and mercy alone that your sins, though they were like scarlet, can be made white as snow. God has opened the door and invites you to come and reason with Him, to receive forgiveness and to enter a new relationship with Him as His child. That order matters. You cannot know the settled peace of God in your heart until you have first received the grace of God.
Many who have peace with God still live without the peace of God day to day. Their lives remain anxious and unsettled because they have not yet learned to rest their case fully in His hands. The promise is that He will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on Him, those who come to a place of total trust and abandonment to Him. That does not mean you will be perfect, but it means you stop approaching Him on the basis of your own goodness and effort, and you come on the basis that He is loving, compassionate and merciful, that He knows your weakness and sympathizes with you, and that He is able to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. As a child of God, His strength and His peace and all His resources are made available to you.
Part of that trust is learning to trust Him when you do not understand what He is doing. It is easy to trust when His ways make sense to us, but genuine trust is proven when He places us in situations we cannot explain. He is wise and His counsel can be trusted, even when it is not what we would choose. He sees what you cannot see and He is working on your behalf. You may not know what He is doing right now, but you can know that He is at work in you, giving you both the desire and the ability to do what pleases Him, and that He will defend and care for those who belong to Him.
God also wants that peace to shape how you live with others. The wisdom that comes from above is peaceable and it leads to peace. Being at war with God leaves us at war within ourselves and with people around us, but when we are made right with God we can learn to live rightly with others, and the effect of that righteousness is peace. Jesus said those who sow peace and make peace will be called children of God, and those who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
So for this unspoken request, I am praying that you will first be sure you have come to God through Jesus alone for grace and forgiveness, and then that you will place this specific burden fully in His hands and keep your mind fixed on Him. I pray He will guard your heart and mind with a peace that goes beyond understanding, that He will give you wisdom from above to do what is right before Him and toward others, and that He will provide the strength you need for each step. May you experience not only that you are at peace with Him, but that His peace is keeping you, as you trust Him even in what you do not yet understand.
I want to encourage you about the difference between peace with God and the peace of God, because both are needed. Peace with God comes only one way, through the blood of Jesus Christ when you surrender your life to Him. There is no other way to be made right with God, and no amount of trying harder or doing good works can earn it. It is by His grace and mercy alone that your sins, though they were like scarlet, can be made white as snow. God has opened the door and invites you to come and reason with Him, to receive forgiveness and to enter a new relationship with Him as His child. That order matters. You cannot know the settled peace of God in your heart until you have first received the grace of God.
Many who have peace with God still live without the peace of God day to day. Their lives remain anxious and unsettled because they have not yet learned to rest their case fully in His hands. The promise is that He will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on Him, those who come to a place of total trust and abandonment to Him. That does not mean you will be perfect, but it means you stop approaching Him on the basis of your own goodness and effort, and you come on the basis that He is loving, compassionate and merciful, that He knows your weakness and sympathizes with you, and that He is able to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. As a child of God, His strength and His peace and all His resources are made available to you.
Part of that trust is learning to trust Him when you do not understand what He is doing. It is easy to trust when His ways make sense to us, but genuine trust is proven when He places us in situations we cannot explain. He is wise and His counsel can be trusted, even when it is not what we would choose. He sees what you cannot see and He is working on your behalf. You may not know what He is doing right now, but you can know that He is at work in you, giving you both the desire and the ability to do what pleases Him, and that He will defend and care for those who belong to Him.
God also wants that peace to shape how you live with others. The wisdom that comes from above is peaceable and it leads to peace. Being at war with God leaves us at war within ourselves and with people around us, but when we are made right with God we can learn to live rightly with others, and the effect of that righteousness is peace. Jesus said those who sow peace and make peace will be called children of God, and those who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
So for this unspoken request, I am praying that you will first be sure you have come to God through Jesus alone for grace and forgiveness, and then that you will place this specific burden fully in His hands and keep your mind fixed on Him. I pray He will guard your heart and mind with a peace that goes beyond understanding, that He will give you wisdom from above to do what is right before Him and toward others, and that He will provide the strength you need for each step. May you experience not only that you are at peace with Him, but that His peace is keeping you, as you trust Him even in what you do not yet understand.
