Insights on Peace, Not as the World Giveth

Isaiah is responsible for giving Jesus one of my favorites of His titles, the Prince of Peace. Isaiah saw in a vision that Christ would be born. He saw that His life would not be easy and it would not be filled with peace.

When Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to pay their taxes, there were too many people in the city and no one would make room for them in the inn, so Jesus was born in a stable.

Herod felt threatened when he heard there was a king who had been born and sent his servants to kill all the babies around the age of Jesus. Joseph was shown a vision and they were able to flee to Egypt to save the Christ child’s life.

Jesus grew up in an obscure village and when He announced who He was and that He had come to fulfill the scriptural prophecies, no one from His town could believe it. His announcement made people angry and they tried to kill Him.

Some people loved Him and followed Him wanting to learn from Him, but many people hated Him. He wasn’t the warrior they were expecting Him to be, the one who would free them from the Roman rule they were under. Because He didn’t meet their expectations, they were angry and wanted to get rid of Him.

The things Jesus taught required His followers to be more kind, loving, and forgiving than they wanted to be. Many people stopped following Him when He asked them to do these things. They were frustrated with Him and His teachings.

The leaders of His village were threatened by the crowd Jesus was gathering as He taught. They didn’t want to lose their positions of power. His own people wanted Him gone and would do anything to get their wish.

Judas, one of Jesus’s closest friends sold Him to the angry leaders. They tied Him up and took Him to an illegal counsel where He was tried and condemned to die.

Then He was taken back and forth between the political leaders for them to decide who would be responsible to carry out the Jew’s request for His punishment. He was laughed at, hit, and spit on as He waited for His fate to be decided.

In the end, Jesus was sentenced to be crucified. He was tortured and forced to carry His own cross to the place He would be killed, and until the very end He was tormented and treated unkindly by the soldiers and the mob that followed.

Truly, the life of Christ was not filled with the kind of peace we would want in our own lives, but peace is exactly what He offers each of us.

The word shalom is the Hebrew word for peace. Technically, it means peace, harmony, wholeness, tranquility, relationship prosperity, and completeness. These are the exact things Jesus can give us in our lives.

Isaiah teaches us how Jesus can give us peace. In Isaiah 26:3 as he is talking to Christ, Isaiah says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee.” As we intentionally turn our minds to Christ, looking to Him for peace, trusting Him with our troubles, He becomes our personal Prince of Peace. As we take our burdens and frustrations to Him in prayer, He can comfort us, strengthen us and give us peace. The better we get at surrendering our heartache to Him and laying our burdens at His feet, the more quickly we can be filled with His peace.

Let me share some of the ways we can feel the Savior’s peace in our lives:

He restores our broken relationship with God the Father. Through His atonement, in doing what we could not to for ourselves, the first relationship He restores is our relationship with the Father. He makes it possible for us to repent and renew that relationship on a regular basis. He makes it possible for us to reconnect with the Father despite our short comings. Peace comes from being able to shed our past mistakes and approach the Father clean again, every time we repent.
He restores our broken relationships with others. When we are ready, He can helps us fix relationships that seem beyond repair. The enabling power of His atonement helps us to be able to forgive beyond our own ability to do so. That same enabling power also helps us to forgive ourselves when we have made mistakes in our life and feel foolish for as we experience the consequences of these choices.
He provides order and balance in our lives. We can approach Him and lay down the burdens that we are unnecessarily carrying and He will help us focus our energy and thoughts on things we can control in our lives. As we take the chaos of our lives to Him and ask for His help, He will assist us in prioritizing and carrying out those things that we are responsible for. He can help us see where we are needed most and how to best approach those needs.
He gives us an assurance of eternal life. Because of Him and His atonement, we don’t have to worry if it is possible to get back to our Heavenly Parents. We know it’s possible. He has made it so. By using the key of repentance, we can unlock the ability to be forgiven and know that someday we will be able to return Home.
He is the teacher of peace. While He lived on earth, He taught His followers what they needed to do to obtain peace. We can read His teachings in the scriptures as well as listening to the prophets and apostles He speaks through in our day. As we follow His doctrine and His counsel, we will know peace.
He is the example of peace. He showed us by the way He lived how we can acquire peace in our lives. He showed us how to serve others. He showed us how to turn to the Father for strength and support. He showed us how to love well and build relationships with others in our lives.

In John 14:27 Jesus told His disciples,

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Christ’s peace is not commonplace. His peace is something that if we seek after it, has the ability to make our lives a hundred times better. If we recognize the validity and the power of that peace, we can have it more abundantly in our lives.

Our prayers may not always be answered in the way we want or as quickly as we would like, but I have found that when I pray for peace and comfort, that is a prayer that is readily answered. We are called to go through storms in our lives in order to learn and grow and become more like our Savior and Heavenly Parents, but we are not called to do this alone. We have been promised the peace of Christ to be our comfort.

The Primary Manual for Come Follow Me is perfect for families with young children!

September Week 2 Lesson: September 5–11. Isaiah 1–12: “God Is My Salvation” (churchofjesuschrist.org)

Free Coloring page downloads from Rising Moon Adventures to help supplement your lesson: