The Prince of Peace Gives Peace in Every Circumstance
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called. . . Prince of Peace” Isaiah 9: 6.
This is a pivotal verse that we hear a lot this time of year. It’s the foretelling of the birth of Jesus, who will one day rule with ultimate authority. His names reveal his divine nature, but in this post, I want to focus on just one of those names: The Prince of Peace.
To read the entire passage for context, click here.
Don’t Quench the Spirit of Peace
If we have the Prince of Peace dwelling within, then we’ll have peace. If we don’t, if we’re full of turmoil or anxiety or depression, we’ve quenched the Spirit of peace. When we don’t have peace, it’s because we don’t have His presence in our situation.
Conversely, if we do have peace, we can be assured all is well between us and God. And He is with us in our difficult circumstance.
I’m not saying if we don’t have peace, He doesn’t love us or we’re not a Christian. We are sons and daughters. And that relationship doesn’t change with our behavior or circumstances. But we are forfeiting that precious gift that Jesus died to give us as we navigate the struggles and difficulties of life.
When we sin, the first thing that happens is we lose our peace. That’s because we’ve quenched the Spirit of Peace who is Christ. Peace is an important indicator of how we’re doing in our relationship with God.
In fact, we can gauge it by this one thing. If we don’t have peace, we need to step back and find out what we’ve done or what has happened that has interfered with our relationship with Him.
Don’t be deceived into thinking that hormones or a difficult circumstance or another person is the reason we’ve lost our peace. We will quickly return to our setpoint of peace if we are walking in faith and obedience. And this is true regardless of what’s going on around us.
The Prince of Peace Protects Us
And since Christ is the Prince of Peace, when we’ve lost our peace, we’ve opened ourselves up to the attacks of the devil. If Christ is within us, we are protected. But when we quench the Spirit, we are vulnerable. And the devil will seize the opportunity.
Peace represents the presence of Christ. And as long as we have that we’re protected. But when we lose it, we’re in danger.
Peace is an attribute of love (Galatians 5: 22, 23). So, another way to say this is when we’ve stopped walking in love (God is love), we’ll lose our peace. Walking in faith and obedience is really just walking in love. Because Jesus said If you love Me, you’ll obey Me (John 14: 15).
Fear Has Torment
When we have fear or anxiety, we’re not walking in love either, because “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” 1 John 4: 18.
Years ago, I went through a year of panic-anxiety related to my job as a new nurse. I did not have peace. Far from it. I experienced torment. And it took a huge toll on my health. My thyroid shut down, and I ended up with hypothyroidism.
This is a treatable condition, but it adversely affected my quality of life, even with the treatment. And it could’ve been avoided had I allowed the Prince of Peace to take control. Click here to read my story.
To read another post related to The Prince of Peace Gives Peace in Every Circumstance, see Resist Temptation and Turn a Snare Into Freedom.