“You keep him in perfect peace 
whose mind is stayed on you, 
because he trusts in you. 
Trust in the Lord forever, 
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”
Isaiah 26:3-4

What does it mean to have peace? What comes to your mind when you hear the word? My mind takes me back to a vacation in the smoky mountains in Tennessee - sitting on the back porch of our cabin sipping a cup of coffee with nothing on the to-do list. Certainly that is a peaceful setting, but that is also a setting that I can achieve on my own. Jesus said in John 14:27: “ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you…” We’re talking about a fruit of the Spirit here; something that the world does not offer and that we cannot produce by our own will. So what does this kind of peace look like?

First and foremost, the foundation of our peace is the truth that in Christ we have been reconciled to God. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). In the New Testament, the Gospel is often called “The Gospel of Peace.” Think about this for a moment - we could not claim peace in our present circumstances if we did not have a future hope. And that future hope is secured by the blood of Jesus Christ for us. Now the Holy Spirit produces that peace in our lives day by day, allowing us to have peace in the midst of trials.

That is why Isaiah was able to write that we have peace when our “mind is stayed on” God. It’s not just the knowledge that God is in control that brings us peace. It’s that truth joined together with the glorious thought that He loves me and I have been reconciled to Him. We love to quote the first part of Romans 8:28 - “All things work together for good…” without remembering the important second half of that verse - “…for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Those who have been made right with God cannot have the peace that only He can give.

This is why Horatio Spafford was able to write these words at the point of his life’s worst trial:

“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul”

Peace comes when we fight the trials of this life with the glorious truth of the Gospel of Peace. We “stay” our minds on the One Who is called Prince of Peace - both because He Himself is Peaceful and because he came to bring Peace. This is something you cannot produce by your own efforts to ‘feel’ peaceful. This comes when we fix our minds on the things of the Spirit, and He produces the fruit of peace in our hearts and minds. That peace will “guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).