The Christian Letter, Volume One: Chapter 33
If this were a fruit you could eat, I feel it would be like a fresh peach. Soft and sweet, but not so sweet that you couldn’t have a lot of them. Peace in the heart does so much for a soul. It causes you to have the gentle complexity necessary to have the other fruits of the Spirit flow from your heart, hands, and feet. Indeed, without peace, love becomes tough love, and is thereby lost sight of.
To find peace, one must seek it. It is, therefore, logical to remove that which is canceling peace. In forgiving others, including oneself, and spending time in His Word and prayer, one can feel the fruit of the Spirit known as Peace. However, “‘There is no peace for the wrong,’ said Yahoweh.” (Isaiah 48:22).
Therefore, the things that cause a lack of peace are a hindrance, right? Well, per se something makes you feel uneasy or someone just seems to know how to make you mad. Yahoweh sometimes removes peace as a sign that something is horribly wrong. Sometimes it is a warning that we need to stop and pray, and look to find the danger that is fast approaching. As for those who can set you off with the push of a button: They show you that you have not learned how to choose peace. There is, however, a dangerous kind of lacking of peace and destruction thereof, the kind I call: comfortable pain.
Humankind has always been comfortable in misery. There is the big picture like war (household), murder (words), and poison (lies), but I want to focus for a moment on smaller comforts. We sit at home and conveniently eat a quick meal that has no value to the Holy Spirit’s Temple. We sit in front of the TV program, and are thereby programmed. We don’t say our prayers at night, because we are tired, nor in the morning, as we are rushed. All for the comfort of sleep, which Satan, the author of lies, calls peace. We fall asleep in our comfortable pain and sigh a big sigh saying, “Ah … how peaceful.” We allow our minds to sleep. What does this have to do with peace? Guilt in sleep. When we eat quickly, the Holy Spirit’s Temple is damaged. We become out of shape while continuing to live the lie. While the TV program programs us, our Bibles lay in dust, unable to touch our lives. When we don’t say our prayers we lose more than answered prayer, we lose contact with the Most High, and that is not what I would call peaceful.
I’m sure you have heard it said: “We are not human beings who have spiritual experiences. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” The quality, therefore, in life, is not a matter of flesh, but of Spirit. More so, of the fruit of the Spirit called Peace. We cannot have peace until we begin to see and do the Father’s Will in His Word. Peace can only come from setting aside our frail traditions of lazy sleep, and grabbing hold of His Truth of invigorating rest. Please read Isaiah 48:22, written out above, again.
Many believe that rest means a lack of activity; however, this is not the case. Sabbath is rest and abstaining from work, not sleep and abstaining from movement. Rest, or peace, is simply a state of being in His Law and showing love to all. Many would call removing an ox from a pit work; however, the Messiah says in Luke 14:5 you can do this and still be at rest. “If only you had listened to My commands! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” (Isaiah 48:18).
The word here is not peace; though, the word used here is a common one you may know quite well: “Shalom.” This word has a deeper meaning than the hippie glazed word “peace.” “ Do not worry at all, but in every matter, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to Elohim. And the peace of Elohim, which surpasses all understanding, shall guard your hearts and minds through Messiah Yahoshuah.” (Philippians 4:6-7). Shalom is a greeting of amends, reconciliation, and a longing for safety, in the spirit of peaceful friendship. It is the thought found in seeing a great friend at the door. The fruit of the Spirit, takes what we can know, and surpasses even that.
Even in times of stress, this shalom awaits us when we cry out to Him in prayer in thanksgiving. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword, for I have come to bring division, a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—and a man’s enemies are those of his own household.” (Matthew 10:34-36). Yet, so long as they reject us for the sole reason of our honest faith and humble actions, then we can still exhibit the fruit of Yahoweh’s Spirit. And sometimes, just sometimes, others will be amazed, and they may one day also come to repentance.
Yahoshuah was put to death, but was raised again because it was impossible for the grave to hold the Torah. The seed dies, but it does not stay dead. It brings forth the same seed only more desirable and plentiful! “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24). Rather than a stumbling block, let us be a well spring of Shalom, overcoming evil by the humility found in the Holy Spirit. We follow the Saviour, not just to the cross, but into the earth, not just into the earth, but into His Kingdom, where pure peace resides. Can you imagine the peace found in His Kingdom? We will rise up, as we do in the Torah of baptism, and find complete Shalom in Him.
“The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the service of righteousness be rest and safety forever. And My people shall dwell in a home of peace, and in safe dwellings, and in undisturbed resting places, even when hail shall fall, felling the forest, and the city be brought low in humiliation. Blessed are you who sow beside all waters, who send out the foot of the ox and the donkey.” (Isaiah 32:17-20).
I never spoke about celebrating Sabbath until I did celebrate it. I always kept Sunday, the first day of the week, and not the day that was commanded. I never thought it mattered which day, until I celebrated the day the Father and Son celebrate; then, and only then, did I really have the peace of His rest. That is why it is common on Sabbath to say, “Shabbat Shalom!” Doing what is right is not about first feeling peaceful, it is about doing right and then feeling peaceful. I urge you all to give His Word a chance and see that Peace is in the following of His Commands, not the traditions of men. Peace is the Father, not ourselves. Peace, the Heavenly Father, can only be truly reached by loving obedience to the Son when He said, “Follow Me”.
Who will we listen to? Satan’s voice, or our understanding, or to the Father? To the fruit of the Spirit known as Peace one whisper says, “No, it’s not real!” while another says, “How could it be?” and yet another says, “Come to Me and see. Give Me your all and behold. Peace is Me.”
“‘For though the mountains be removed and the hills be shaken, My kindness is not removed from you, nor is My covenant of peace shaken,’ said Yahoweh, who has compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54:10).
Be Blessed and be a Blessing
Shalom
-Valentine Thalken Billingsley
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Additional Scripture References:
Numbers 25:12, Judges 6:24, Psalms 85:8, 85:10, 119:165, 120:6-7, 122:6, Proverbs 14:30, Isaiah 59:8, Ezekiel 37:26, Matthew 5:9, Luke 1:79, John 14:27, Romans 3:17, Hebrews 12:11, 1 Peter 3:10-12, James 3:13-18, Isaiah 26:3, 2 Peter 3:14
