February 26: My peace I give you

I have spoken these things while staying with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does. Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage.  (John 14:25-27  NET)

Here Jesus speaks about the Holy Spirit that the Father would send to His disciples, after His return to the Father. The word that is translated “advocate” could also mean “counselor”, “helper”, or “comforter”. In fact, English does not have a word that does justice to this particular word in Greek, it is a mix of all these terms, but in this context Jesus explains how His disciples could count on Him to teach them everything they would need to know, and remind them of the teachings of Jesus. Though the disciples had already been with Him for three and a half years, they would need this supernatural guidance and direction when Jesus was gone. How much more do we—who have not had the privilege of physically living with Jesus—need the Holy Spirit’s help.

God has given us His written word, the Bible, and His Spirit—the same Spirit that inspired and directed the writers of God’s Holy Word. Therefore the Spirit, who is within us, will never tell us, or lead us to do anything that is contradictory to the Word of God. Instead, He will help us to understand and obey the Word.

Jesus also mentions peace in this passage. This is God’s peace, not the world’s version of peace, and as He explains, when we truly experience this peace we do not live in a constant state of distress and fear. True children of God know that God is with them and that nothing in this world has the power to decide their future. They have peace because they are aware of the authority they have in the Lord Jesus Christ, and because they have the conviction that they are saved. This does not mean that we are simply peace-lovers; the person who truly experiences the peace of God, by definition, must be at war with the devil, demons, sin, his flesh, and the world. Without this warrior like attitude, the peace of God cannot exist.

Many people today want peace at any cost… they want all nations of the world to be at peace with one another, they want to empathize with terrorists, to be accepting of all points of view… even churches want to forget their differences, water-down their messages, and live in unity. But we must understand that peace cannot exist without war, love cannot exist without hate. To truly experience God’s peace, I must be at war with Satan, and to truly love God, I must hate the devil.