Between BordersNäide

How Can We Experience Peace?

As we saw yesterday, loving one another can be challenging. That said, it is a commandment from God, and, when practiced, it becomes a win-win situation for everyone involved!

As if that’s not enough, however, there’s yet another benefit to loving others: it becomes our pathway to peace. If every individual practiced loving their neighbor, peace of mind and peace on Earth would become our daily reality.

In 2 Corinthians 13:11, we read: “Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.” (NIV)

Our heavenly Father desires for us to experience this peace—HIS peace—in the here and now. When we choose to not love our neighbors, we lose out on God’s gift of peace.

God has given us His Word as a guide. We can experience peace every day as we read, listen to, meditate on, and practice His principles. Too often, we try to make things happen by our own might and willpower. But what we discover is that what isn’t within our own power is accessible through the Spirit and the Word.

While it almost seems quaint nowadays, perhaps the youth culture of the 1960s was on the right track when they greeted each other with the words, “Peace and Love.” Our challenge in this century is to live out God’s true “shalom.”