Do you have peace?

“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit (or spiritual things) is life and peace.”

– Romans 8:6

One thing that I have come to appreciate in life so much is peace. Peace is the feeling that everything is fine with you. You have no guilt, no emotional pain, no depression, your mind isn’t going a million miles a minute. It’s like the feeling of sitting by a calm river in the green grass on a beautiful day. What a wonderful feeling. You aren’t mad, you aren’t sad, it’s not even a overly happy feeling. It just the feeling of being perfectly content right where you are. I love it.

I don’t experience that peace every moment of the day, but the beautiful thing is that if I am not experiencing that peace, I know exactly what to do. I know exactly how to get to that place of peace and I can do it every time, without fail. Oh, glory to God! I don’t know how I would survive if I didn’t know how!

The way to experience peace is shown in the passage above. The way you do it is to set your mind on spiritual things, or be spiritually minded. This is all throughout the bible. Look at some other scriptures:

“You shall keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” Isaiah 26:3

“Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy–meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9

Notice that all of these scriptures talk about your mind. The secret you need to learn is to be able to take your mind off of the things of this world and put them onto the things of God. Once you learn to do this, you can learn to always get to that place of peace, and even walk in a constant state of peace, if you want to. For some people this is very hard to do. I understand. Your mind is racing a million miles a minute and it’s hard to get it to slow down. But you can do it. Here’s how I do it:

First you have to understand that it takes effort. Don’t think you can say some magic words and it will work for you. Second, you are going to need repent of any sins you have committed and ask God to forgive you. He will forgive you and cleanse you, and in His mind it will be as if it has never happened. You also need to repent for your negative thoughts and ask God to help you to overcome them. Next you need to open your bible, find a passage and begin to read it OUT LOUD. It is very, very important that you actually say it with your lips. It’s very hard to think something different than what you are saying, so if you are speaking and reading the bible the negative thoughts will disappear as long as you are talking. This will begin to take your mind off the world and on to the things of God (the spiritual things) which will eventually bring peace to your life as the scriptures promise. Lastly, you need to pray OUT LOUD. And don’t stop praying until the peace comes. Don’t leave until you get what you came for. If you don’t know what to pray, just praise God over and over again. I remember one time I just said, “Praise you Jesus,” for a hour straight, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. But, hey, it worked!

I do this all the time. Sometimes I just pray, sometimes I just read the bible out loud. The best way is to just walk in that peace all the time. How do you do it? Just keep your mind on spiritual things all day long. Include God in everything you do. Thank Him for what He’s done when you are at school, or at work, or driving down the road. Keep Him on your mind and His Word on your lips and you’ll have the peace that passes understanding. It’s a wonderful thing.