God is Restoring Peace

For many of us, the Christmas season is rarely characterized by "peace". But the peace of Christmas isn't the absence of busyness, it is the harmonious restoration of all that is chaotic and broken.

We see the brokenness as we relate to others. On a small scale, it could be a fight with a spouse, a family member, a friend or a co-worker. On a large scale, we see numerous examples of grave injustice between groups of people (hostility, war, genocide).

We observe the brokenness in our physical world. Disease, decay, and death still affect us all, though this wasn't God's original design.

We feel the brokenness in our hearts. We are often filled with anxiety, worry, indecisiveness, and doubt (even at times when there is nothing obviously wrong).

But that is not how it was in the beginning. There was perfect peace and harmony at the beginning of God's creation: internally, with the physical world, between people (Adam and Eve). That harmony existed because of the perfect harmony between God and his people.

Because of man's rebellion against God, we lost that harmony. The restoration of that harmony (with God, with people, with nature, and within our hearts) is what God announced at the birth of Jesus. How? Jesus came on a rescue mission to reconcile people to God through his perfect life, his death on the cross in our place for our sins, and his resurrection from death. Paul says in Romans 5:1, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Christmas is the celebration that because we can be reconciled to God through Jesus we can have ultimate peace and harmony once again! We begin to experience the first fruits of that once we believe in Jesus, and we can experience that in growing ways as we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. We will experience the totality of it when Jesus comes again to restore all things in the new heavens and the new earth.

Heavenly Father, I am so grateful that you have made a way for me to be reconciled to you and therefore to experience peace. Please grant that I may experience it more and more as I allow the Holy Spirit’s power to work in me. And thank you for the promise that, in Jesus, one day I will experience the perfect fullness of your peace.

Throughout This Day: Take time to thank God for making a way for you to be reconciled to him and have peace. Thank him for his promise that one day, in Jesus, you will get to experience perfect peace and harmony