Thursday, January 21, 2010

Dont let your heart be troubled!

Let not your hearts be troubled… (John14:1)

Jesus address here one of the most pressing issues we face in our world today. We are pressed in on every side by the pressures of life, the business of our schedules and by the constraints of our hectic lifestyle. Our hearts are always troubled and worried about this or that.

But Jesus tells not to have troubled hearts? Why? Because stress kills, worry eats away at a person soul and eventually destroys us. Our security and safety as well as our provision comes from the fellowship we have with Him. Yet the key thing here that Jesus is telling us is that the choice of a troubled heart does not lie in His hands but in ours!

Make no mistake, its not that Jesus is saying we have to try and ignore our problems or issues and not trouble our hearts with this world. No! He is saying I have laid up peace for you. The solution for the troubled heart is the peace He can give you! A little further in the chapter He tells the disciples this: (John 14:27) 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.

The peace is already given; this however, does not guarantee a untroubled heart. The provision is there! Yes! However, the manifestation of the peace must be received and planted into our hearts to be effective. Then we move from a place of worry to a place of security based on this word.

Let me put it this way. Say a man in a desert is dying of thirst. He staggers along looking for water, his parched tongue sticking to this palate. His vision blurry, his clothes filled with sand, the heat of the sun is all consuming. All he wants is a drink of water. He is literally dying for it. He crawls over a sand dune and he sees an oasis! His heart leaps for joy and he makes his way down to the waters edge.

Now when he gets there does he stop and look at the water admiringly? Because he sees the water, can touch the water is that sufficient? The water is there it can give him back his life, but if all he does is just look at it, touch it and even swim in it, if that’s all he does, he will surely die. He has to drink it to live!

Its the same here with the peace of God, we are staggering along with the weight of the world and He is offering us His peace that will remove our worry and stress. It is the oasis in the desert. The peace is there, it has been given, just like that water in the oasis. We can sing about the peace, dance around the peace, talk about the peace, but if we don’t receive the peace into our hearts we will never stop worrying!

If we listen carefully to Jesus He is saying “Let not..” . YOU do not allow your heart to be troubled. You have to make a choice to do this. When we have His peace we can rely on it! We can choose to dwell on the knowledge of His peace and love, rather than our ways or the world’s ways.

Do you want peace in your life, free from worry and stress? Take the peace of God into your heart. Receive it today, live it today! Don’t let your heart be troubled!

You can choose!