MY PEACE I GIVE TO YOU
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans: “My Vrede Gee Ek aan Julle”
I once wrote a ‘thought from the Word’ titled “Let Us Live What We Believe,” which I can also send to you if you would like to read it.
Actually, following my conversation with Frances—as I will call him/her to keep the person anonymous—you should really have read that ‘thought from the Word’ first, in order to see our conversation in full perspective.
Frances read the ‘thought from the Word’ and then wrote to me the following, which I would like to share with you:
“One cannot live what one believes when life has been dealing one punch after another for 59 years already—it is a myth.”
I then replied to Frances as follows:
Good day, Frances,
You know, sometimes I think a person simply needs a shift in perspective.
From a human point of view, I have had to face several very great tragedies in my life, and I still carry some of them with me. But I have something that many millionaires and others do not have—
I have the peace and joy of our Lord in my heart, and that makes life a celebration.
I am not wealthy.
I am a pensioner who is physically blind, and I had a wife who lay paralyzed in a Care Home for many years after her stroke. I have had to struggle with many other tremendous problems as well—but Jesus said:
JOHN 16:33
“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
Because I believe this with my whole heart and have made it my own, I also have the wonderful peace of my Jesus, which He gives to all who have accepted Him as their Lord and Savior.
We must simply take what He holds out to us, and make it our own:
JOHN 14:27
“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
Frances then replied to me as follows:
“Hello Sakkie,
You have something that I do not have either.
I believe with my whole heart in the God of the Bible, but I have no joy in my heart. You and I both believe that Jesus Christ accomplished our salvation; for me this is an indisputable fact. But I do not experience the peace and joy that you and the Bible testify about.
I do not long for much money—only for what you are speaking about. Why do some people have it and others not? I have been struggling with this for many years and sometimes wonder whether it is not just a story—a myth.
Greetings.”
My reply to Frances:
Frances, just to show you how absolutely deceitful the “this is a myth” arrows are that satan is shooting at your thoughts—and which you must ward off and extinguish with the shield of faith in the Name of Jesus Christ:
EPHESIANS 6:16 “In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil.”
Let me show you how utterly false and evil the statement “that it is a myth,” or even “might be,” really is:
Satan now wants to make you wonder whether this Jesus Christ, in whom you testify that you believe, might Himself be proclaiming a myth.
In other words, satan wants you to believe and say that Jesus Christ is a liar.
In other words, satan wants you to blaspheme God—
for according to the Word, Jesus Christ is also God.
It is written there, and you yourself have read what Jesus Christ says about Himself to you and to me:
JOHN 16:33 “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
JOHN 14:27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
Now let me speak for a moment like a fool who is completely without sound reason and say: forget for a moment everything Jesus Christ—who according to the Word is God who became man—said about the peace He gives us.
Let us then focus only on ordinary people from the Word, because you and I are ordinary people, and see how those ordinary people acted because they were filled with this peace of Jesus Christ—this peace that satan now wants you to doubt and consider a myth.
ACTS 7:57–60
57 Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him in a mob.
58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
60 He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died.
This is what Stephen was able to do because he was filled with the peace that satan now wants to portray in your heart as a myth.
I will share with you one more example—my great hero, Paul.
ACTS 7:58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.
This Saul of Tarsus was a Pharisee who was making great progress in his time.
On one occasion, he writes about this period of his life:
GALATIANS 1:13You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion—how I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my best to destroy it.
GALATIANS 1:14I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors.
One could even place Saul of Tarsus—because of all the murders he helped commit—in the category of a mass murderer. But Saul of Tarsus met Jesus Christ, accepted Him as his Savior and Redeemer, made the peace of which Jesus Christ speaks his own—and then we read the following about Paul – things that you (like Stephen) can only endure through that divine peace, because that divine peace is greater than those circumstances.
At that time people went around boasting about what good Christians they were and what all they had given up and endured.
You only do that, of course, when you lend your ears to satan.
Paul begins by saying that he too will now, for a moment, speak like those people—as a fool—and then he lists what people at the time would have regarded as achievements in a person’s life:
2 CORINTHIANS 11:22
Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.
What follows is something you can only endure and live through joyfully if you have the peace of which Jesus Christ speaks in your life. And remember, before this life he was a respected citizen, looked up to by others:
2 CORINTHIANS 11:23–29
23 Are they servants of Christ? I know I sound like a madman, but I have served him far more! I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again.
24 Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea.
26 I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not.
27 I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.
28 Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches.
29 Who is weak without my feeling that weakness? Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger?
While he had to endure this kind of treatment again and again, until he eventually sat in a prison in Rome waiting for the executioner to come for him, he could—because he had made the peace of Jesus Christ his own—also write the following:
2 CORINTHIANS 4:8
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:9
We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.
It is that peace of Jesus Christ which Stephen had while they were stoning him, and about which Paul wrote, and which I also proclaim.
I then conclude with, among others, the two passages with which I also began this conversation, as stated in the Amplified Translation:
JOHN 16:33 “ 33 I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.]
JOHN 14:27 “ Peace I leave with you; My [perfect] peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.” [Let My perfect peace calm you in every circumstance and give you courage and strength for every challenge.]
Take this and make it your own.
I am not saying that your circumstances will necessarily change, but you will be a much, much happier person in spite of your circumstances—whatever those circumstances may be.
Then you will also experience what the Word says:
PHILIPPIANS 4:6
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all He has done.
PHILIPPIANS 4:7
Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
“When we therefore pray with thanksgiving, we experience God’s peace.”
The Amplified Bible read as follows: PHIL 4:7
7 And the peace of God [that peace which reassures the heart, that peace] which transcends all understanding, [that peace which] stands guard over your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus [is yours].
Greetings,
Sakkie