What is the peace of God, and how can I experience it?

Then again there are the varied testings and worries of life, things which have a tendency to fill our hearts with anxious care. In regard to these prayer is our resource. We should mingle thanksgivings with our prayers, for we should ever be mindful of the abundant mercies of the past. And the scope of our prayers is only limited by the word, "everything."

This scripture invites us to turn everything into a matter of prayer, and freely make known our requests to God. There is no guarantee, you notice, that all our requests will be granted. That would never do for our understanding is very limited and consequently we often ask for that which, if granted to us, would be neither to the glory of our Lord nor to our own blessing. What is guaranteed is that our hearts and minds shall be guarded by the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. Again and again when Christians have passed through trials, from which they had in vain requested to be exempted, we find them looking back and saying, "I am a wonder to myself. How I could have passed through so heavy a trial, and yet have been lifted above it into such serenity, I cannot understand."

"The peace of God," must be distinguished from "peace with God," of which we read in Romans 5:1. That is the peace in relation to God, which comes from the knowledge of being justified before Him. This is the peace, in character like to God's own peace, which fills our hearts when having committed everything to Him in prayer, we trust in His love and wisdom on our behalf, and consequently have anxious care as to nothing.

He will bring out everything that is according to Himself. He will bless every desire wherever there may have been a true testimony for Himself. He will give effect to it in that day. "The Lord is at hand." He is not come yet, but you can go to Him now and lay all your requests before Him, assured that He is near, that He is coming. And what is the result? "The peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." v. 7. When the heart commits to God all that would be a burden to it, the consequence is that His peace, the peace in which He moves and lives, guards us from the entrance of all that would harass. The sources of care are cast into the Lord's lap, and the peace of God Himself, which surpasses every understanding, becomes our protection.

To most of us care is the greatest hindrance, but he says be careful for nothing. That lifts us above our circumstances! It is God who says to you ‘Be careful for nothing; but in every thing (from the little trifle to the great concern) by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God’ (4:6), that is, the Christian’s normal confidence is in God. The result is that ‘the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep [our] hearts and minds through Christ Jesus’ (v. 7), that is, conditional on our trusting God whatever brings care. We may say that is beyond our understanding. Indeed, the verse says so! We have only to confide in Him as to any element which would develop care and we shall prove the blessedness of that peace which defies description. May we realise increasingly the value of these things until we enter the scene where there will be nothing to hinder our enjoyment of heavenly things in His presence.

404 "And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts." This is not peace with God; or that your heart keeps the peace either. The peace keeps your heart, and it is the peace of God, the peace He is in. My own peace I understand very well. The peace He is in keeps my heart, and it passes all understanding - of course it does, because it is "the peace of God." I do not know what I may get; but of one thing I am sure - I shall get the very best thing, though it may come in a way very grating to my feelings.

A word on peace. There are three statements about it, each expressing something which the believer is privileged to enjoy. 1st. Peace with God. 2nd. The peace of Christ. 3rd. The peace of God. The first concerns the conscience, the second the heart, and the third is to garrison the heart. The first, peace with God, the believer has consequent on being justified by faith, and it rests on the knowledge that every question between God and the guilty one has been settled, and settled for ever, by the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. The consciousness of guilt makes the sinner afraid of God, as Adam confessed (Gen. 3:10), "I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." The knowledge of the Lord's resurrection for our justifying, having been first delivered for our offences, assures us that all is settled; hence, justified by faith, we have peace with God. The second, the peace of Christ is Christ's gift to His people (John 14:27). It is what He enjoyed on earth in the midst of all that He passed through in His testimony for God, and it is to rule in our hearts (Col. 3:15). The third, the peace of God, reminds us of the unruffled atmosphere in which He dwells. This He has promised shall guard the heart of each weak, tried, and it may be persecuted saint, who in simplicity and reality unburdens his heart to God in prayer (Phil. 4:7).

The peace of God (Phil. 4:7). This is circumstantial. By that we mean, peace in relation to our circumstances; and, wonderful to relate, it is God’s own peace which is ours in this connection. Peace with God is ours as the result of what Christ has done; the peace of God is ours as the result of what we do; as we read, “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts (the seat of your affections) and minds (the seat of your thoughts) through Christ Jesus.” These are the terms for the enjoyment of the peace of God. Full of care for nothing; prayerful and thankful to God in everything. Peace with God is ours through faith, this through prayer and thanksgiving. The first is ours in regard to the putting away of our sins at the cross; the second is ours in regard to all circumstances, as we gratefully leave our cares with Him who gives us His own peace instead. Words cannot express the infinite grace and sweetness of this: it “passes all understanding.”

Then, too, we may express in prayer all the manifold needs of our own souls. "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:6-7). This word is the more remarkable from the fact that it is found in the very chapter in which the apostle assures us, "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (v. 19). Still, notwithstanding this blessed confidence, God would have us, with all the freedom of children, to make known to Him our requests; and though He does not promise to grant them in every case, He yet assures us that His peace shall guard our hearts. It is in this way, indeed, that confidence is established in our intercourse with God, that the priceless habit is formed of having no reserves with Him, and that intimacy of communion is cultivated. It is in accordance with this that the psalmist cries, "Trust in Him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before Him" (Psalm 62:8); and that St. Peter says, "Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you" (1 Peter 5:7).

Second, “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” “In everything.” This covers all the circumstances of our path. It takes in the greatest anxiety as well as the smallest detail. It embraces circumstances over which we have no control and those into which we have been brought by our own folly and sin. Now God’s government must stand. But even here a repentant child may bring his prayer and supplication, and obtain an answer of grace. We are encouraged to make known our requests to God. “Our requests.” We are to do it by prayer. Aye, and even if pressure is great and a request much desired, we are exhorted to supplication—something more intense and importunate than prayer.

Further, we are directed to let it all be “with thanksgiving”—thanks before the answer is given. Why? We may not always get our requests granted, but we shall always have an answer of wisdom and grace. The request may be granted, or modified, or altered, or refused. In each case love is equally at work with wisdom to give us an answer that suits us best. We may not think so. God knows best. And what will be the issue to those who are thus exercised? Rejoicing in the Lord but not in circumstances. Gentle to all men. “The Lord is at hand.” Resting in a sense of God’s tender care, making known our requests with thanksgiving.

"Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus," Phil. 4:6-7. Paul is speaking here of cares, but comfort and rest are equally found there in affliction. "Who comforteth us," says the apostle, "in all our afflictions," and he appeals to God as "the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation." At Philippi they were filled with peace, through the consolation poured into their hearts. This may also be through circumstances; for Paul says, "God, who comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus," 2 Cor. 7:6. He had been utterly cast down, because he had not met Titus, who had been sent to the Corinthians when they were walking very badly. He had abandoned the open door for the gospel at Troas, and his heart had even gone the length of regretting that he had written his first inspired epistle. His faith had sunk below the level of the power of God, which had impelled him to write it. Arrived in Macedonia, still on his way to meet Titus, though testifying to Christ as he went, his flesh had no rest; he says, "We were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears." God allowed the apostle to feel his weakness; but it is worth while to be afflicted, if God Himself becomes our comforter. Titus arrives bringing good tidings to the effect of his first epistle, and the apostle is full of joy. God often takes away the affliction itself and fills the soul with gladness, pouring His consolations into the heart which thus becomes more matured for communion with Himself and for heaven. In every case of affliction prayer is our resource; we own our dependence and we confide in His goodness. The heart draws near to Him, it tells out to Him its need and its sorrow, laying it down on the throne and the heart of God, who answers either by circumstances which make us happy, or by pouring in His consolation - an answer which is still more blessed than outward happiness - but ever by that which is best for us, acting according to His perfect love.

Some of the above Scriptures contain the wish or prayer that ‘the God of peace’ might be with believers. There is a wonderful progression from having ‘peace with God’ (Rom. 5:1), a judicial peace, to enjoying the ‘peace of God’ (Phil. 4:7) as a result of committing our concerns and requests to Him, and then from there to the experience that the ‘God of peace’ is with us (see next point). In Philippians 4:9, we learn under what condition this will be the case: when we act in obedience so that we enjoy communion with Him. The condition is: ‘What ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, these things do’. This leads to the known and felt presence of the person, the very ‘God of peace’. Paul informs the Roman believers that this ‘God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly’ (Rom. 16:20). He will judge the one who has sought, at all cost, to disturb their, and our, peace. Further, the desire is expressed that He might ‘sanctify’ believers (1 Thess. 5:23) — i.e. to set them apart for Himself in their practical lives — and ‘perfect’ believers (Heb. 13:20–21) — i.e. to develop them into fully grown believers, fit for ‘every good work to the doing of his will’. To the Corinthians, Paul makes the point that disorder would be very uncharacteristic of this God and that, positively, He is marked by (not only order but) peace (we have ‘author of peace’ in the King James Version, ‘God of peace’ in the J N Darby translation, and simply ‘of peace’ in the original in 1 Corinthians 14:33). When Paul wrote his second letter to the Corinthians the chief disorders had been corrected. Now he encourages them to ‘rejoice; be perfected; be encouraged; be of one mind; be at peace’ and states that then the ‘God of peace’ would be with them (2 Cor. 13:11).