Obtaining Perfect Peace from God

Isaiah 26:3 (KJV) - Thou (Oh Lord) wilt keep him IN PERFECT PEACE, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.

First of all, God can only do the miracle of giving us perfect peace in our souls when we focus our minds steadfastly upon Him and Him alone. Then when we do this, there is just no room left within our minds to think about anything else, so we reach peace.

Isaiah 9:6 - For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us….And His name will be called….Prince of Peace.

Therefore, as we think only about Him, the Prince of peace, He gives us His perfect peace within our being.

John 14:27 -  ….My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give it to you. So do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

Now, since the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the Word of God, we can also expand our understanding of this promise verse for peace to include staying our minds upon either Him or upon various portions of His word.

Revelation 19:13 - ….His (Jesus) name is called The Word of God.

Second, since the Bible tells us that Jesus can never be taken away from us by anything (including Himself) and since He and His words are everlasting, we can totally relax and rest all of our thoughts upon Him and His word.

Hebrews 13:5b (AMP) - ….for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor  give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not! [I will] not!! [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake you nor let [you] down (relax My hold upon you)!!!

[Assuredly not!].

Romans 8:15 - 39 - Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?.....Neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Matthew 24:35 - Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.

Third, with these verses and thoughts in mind, consider this; If we stay our minds upon anything other than Jesus Christ and / or His word we cannot possibly reach perfect peace! Why? Because any other things may be taken from us at any time so they are  just not reliable to give us perfect peace. They may seem to be reliable for temporary peace but never for perfect peace!

Consequently, ask God what created things cannot be taken from us? Cannot a loved one whom we are completely relying upon to be there with and for us, be taken from us at any time? Cannot ours or anyone’s marriage break apart? Cannot our property and / or our prosperity that we rely upon be taken from us? Cannot our country be beaten in a war and we become refugees or prisoners? Cannot our health that seems to be so vital to our well being be taken from us? Cannot our very lives be taken from us? So how can we rely upon or put our trust in any of these things to always be there for us and thus to give us perfect peace? We cannot!

Therefore, the fact is that it is only something that cannot be taken from us that can be relied upon to give us perfect peace. That’s why our starting verse above tells us to stay our minds only upon our eternal God (and by implication, His eternal word)! He and His word cannot be taken from us, no matter what! So that means that only He and His word can give us perfect peace.

Now in order to practically apply this teaching, we need to learn that as we become aware of any lack of peace in our minds, this is actually a signal from the Holy Spirit for us to put our minds and our thoughts right onto Jesus and / or His word. This means that as we come to realize that we are anxious, depressed, fearful and / or not in joy or peace in any way, we need to see this condition as being our signal from God to stop whatever we are doing and / or thinking and to place our minds onto Him and / or His word so that we can quickly reach peace.

2 Corinthians 10:5 - ….we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ….

A great passage of Scripture to let our minds dwell upon whenever we are upset in any way is….

Matthew 14:22 - 31 - He made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away. After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone. But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary.  

And in the]fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea.  When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Peter said to Him, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”  And He said, “Come!” And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, so he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  When they got into the boat, the wind stopped.

This story’s storm can be seen as an analogy of the upsets in our lives that rob us of peace. When by faith, Peter focused his mind upon Jesus and not the distressing problem of the storm, he was able to boldly step out and walk with Him in peace above its agitations. But when he let the devil focus his mind upon his unsettled surrounding circumstances and not just upon the calm of Jesus, towards whom he was heading, fear of those circumstances robbed him of his faith and destroyed his peace of mind so that he immediately sank down in defeat into his problem in a worse way than when he was still in the boat with the other disciples. When he was focused only upon Jesus, he was given supernatural victory over his troubling circumstances and with it, peace of mind but when he took his mind off of Jesus, Satanic fear took him over and would have killed him if he didn’t look back to Jesus for His saving help.

Below is another Scriptural account of a similar story that adds to the storm analogy of the upsets of life....

Mark 4:35 - 37 -  ….when evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the sea.” Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much so that the boat was already filling up.

Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” So He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.

In this story we see the lack of peace in the minds of Jesus disciples as they are focusing their attention upon the very upsetting problem of another storm in their lives. This time the problem seems to be so major to them as to be life threatening! But when they focused their thinking upon Jesus and went to Him and asked Him to show them that he cared about them, He brought forth His supernatural power to immediately solve their problem. This illustrates just how much Jesus cares for us in the midst of our problems and our fears and how He can answer our prayers with miracles.

So when we focus our minds upon Jesus Himself or on these passages of Scripture or on any other passages of Scripture for that matter, there will be no room in our minds for any upsetting thoughts whatsoever about any of our problems and we will be able to settle into the perfect peace over which the Lord Jesus Christ is Prince.

If unsettling thoughts do come back into our minds, then we simply overcome them by resisting them with repeated applications of the above practical procedure and we keep on repeating it until those thoughts leave us for good!

Finally, when we do enter into God’s peace on any issue whatsoever, we can also believe  that we have settled into the center of God’s will for that issue.

Colossians 3:15 (AMP) - And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ RULE (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to which as [members of Christ’s] one body you were also called [to live continuously]....