Immediately after the creation week, the world had peace.
It didn’t last long, though.
The first man and first woman threw away their place in a literal paradise by refusing to follow God’s simple instructions, and ever since then, the world has been something of a mess. The first murder happened shortly afterward, and within nine generations, the human race had grown so wicked and corrupt that God decided to wipe the slate clean and start over with one righteous man and his family.
Even then, it only took a couple of generations before mankind was back to rebelling against God and ignoring His instructions. The families of the world became warring factions, which became warring city-states, which in time became warring nations. Kingdoms rose and fell, conquerors came and conquered—and while there have been pockets of human history with fewer conflicts than others, the sad truth is that for the last 6,000 years, our world has not known true, lasting peace.
That’s because peace is a fruit of the Spirit and—you guessed it—isn’t something we can understand on our own.
Peace is more than just the absence of conflict. Just because two people (or groups or nations) aren’t actively fighting, that doesn’t always mean they’re at peace. Things can look calm on the surface, but underneath, where no one can see, tensions can simmer until a wrong look or stray word reignites the conflict all over again.
That’s not the peace Paul was writing about when he talked about the fruit of the Spirit. God’s Spirit doesn’t produce the kind of temporary, impermanent peace that falls apart the second something goes wrong. Isaiah wrote to God, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isaiah 26:3).
There aren’t any other strings attached to this promise. It’s not, “You will keep him in perfect peace, as long as the world around him is relatively peaceful too.” It’s not, “You will keep him in perfect peace, as long as he isn’t going through an especially rough time.” It’s, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You.”
There’s a lot to that. For starters, it’s not a promise that we’ll be kept in peaceful situations. Jesus asked, “Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division” (Luke 12:51). He knew the gospel of the Kingdom was going to be a highly polarizing message, and that it would even set family members against each other (verses 52-53).
That’s a far cry from peaceful—and yet it doesn’t contradict what we just read in Isaiah. Even when the world around us isn’t peaceful, God promises that we can still find peace.
During His time on earth, Jesus leveled a charge against Jerusalem, the city whose inhabitants would ultimately crucify Him: “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42). Jerusalem didn’t understand the things which made for its peace—and as a result, it was destroyed by its enemies shortly thereafter (verses 43-44).
Do you know the things that make for your peace?
It’s not a secret, but it’s also not common knowledge. The prophet Isaiah watched on as his countrymen separated themselves from God through their sins and disobedience (Isaiah 59:2). He then observed, “Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace” (verses 7-8).
There’s a way, a path toward peace, and that path is marked by justice and righteousness. We cannot, in other words, just do whatever we want and still find peace. We have to be living inside God’s established framework of right and wrong before real peace even becomes a possibility.
But there’s more to it than just doing the right thing. You could do the right thing all day, every day of your life, but that doesn’t guarantee peace in a stressful situation. Paul explained to the Romans, “The kingdom of God is … righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. … Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another” (Romans 14:16-19).
There’s that concept again. Peace doesn’t just happen. It must be made. Pursued. Otherwise it will remain forever out of reach.
In His darkest hour, Jesus showed His disciples what true peace looks like. He told them, “Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:32-33).
Jesus was about to experience one of the most excruciating deaths a human being can experience. His closest companions were about to scatter in fear. And yet, somehow, He had peace—and He offered His disciples that same peace too.
Jesus had peace because He was “not alone.” No matter what happened, Jesus had the Father to draw His strength and comfort from.
Earlier, He told His disciples, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I” (John 14:27-28).
Peace, as we’ve already established, isn’t about what’s going on around you. It’s about what’s going on inside you. Christ had peace before His death because He knew what He was doing, He knew why He was doing it, and He knew He could count on the Father being with Him through it all.
That’s the formula for our peace too. Peace is part of the fruit of the Spirit because the more God works in us, the more those same things become true for us. We know what we’re doing, we know why we’re doing it, and we know that, no matter what, God the Father is guiding and protecting and strengthening us. That’s the secret to real, lasting peace—not an absence of external conflict, but a wholeness that comes from our unity with our Creator and our trust in Him.
But peace doesn’t stop there. It starts internally, yes, but it’s contagious. It spreads. Over time, our internal peace becomes external peace, working its way into our relationships with others and shaping how we interact with the world. Paul told us, “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18) and to “let the peace of God rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15).
He also reminded us, “Be anxious 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 surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).
Peace doesn’t mean we never want or ask for anything. Peace doesn’t mean we’re always approving of the way things are. Peace means that we only concern ourselves with the things we have the power to change, while trusting God to handle the things we can’t, knowing that He has the power and the wisdom to deal with them better than we can. The more we learn to do that, the more we’ll discover what it means to have “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” guarding our hearts and minds.
