10 03 07 The Protection of His Peace

“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7 NIV)

Yes, the peace of God; knowing I am His child and He is my Father, my Savior, my Redeemer, my Rock, my Fortress, my Friend and my God.

When I am rejected, He sticks closer than a brother. When others abandon me, He will never leave me nor forsake me. When the load is too heavy to bear, He asks me to lay my burdens at the cross and allow Him to shoulder the weight. When I am down-trodden from the weight of guilt and failure, His Cross looms every so large in my vision, as He says “Forgiven”. When the work seems hard and fruitless, he tells me to come to Him and He’ll give me rest. When others call me crazy and foolish for following my God, He reassures me that His ways are not man’s ways. Even if I am faced with death, I can rest assured that there is nothing man can do to me, He who is within me is greater than any foe I may face, and He goes through the dark and shadowy valleys with me. There is calmness even in the roughest storms, because He is right there in the midst of it all with me!

If you lived in a frontier town constantly harassed by raiding parties from an enemy, one option for your military would be to send troops to actually live beside you. These troops would be ‘garrisoned’ to your town, and their presence would not only provide protection during an attack; they, hopefully, would dissuade the enemy from even launching any more attacks. This is the implication of Paul’s language in this passage; that the peace of God will be garrisoned within your heart and mind, providing an ever-present protection from within as opposed to the need to stressfully search the horizon for the Calvary to arrive just in the nick of time.*

THE PROTECTION OF HIS PEACE goes beyond any alarm system, weapon, or military presence. Even in death, there is victory. What other peace can guarantee that? No cease-fire, no peace treaty, no handshake brings that much assurance.

THE PROTECTION OF HIS PEACE brings along the entire arsenal of the Lord of Hosts, the Commander of all the forces of Almighty God, the Creator of all that is and was and will be. What more could we ask for?

We need not look any further than our hearts. If we know Him, we know peace. If we don’t know Him there will be no peace.

As the line in the movie once said, “who you gonna’ call?”


* Jon Walker, The Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotional, October 3, 2007, PurposeDrivenLife.com