“Peace on earth! Good will towards men!!” Many of us can identify those words as being spoken by the angels to the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth. It sounds wonderful … PEACE on earth! Yet here we are, in a year filled with anything BUT peace in our nation and in other places around the world. It causes many to question the message of the angels and the purpose of our celebration. Does God make promises and not keep them? Or is God unable to fulfill the longings of our hearts for peace because His wisdom and power are somehow limited by the stubbornness and depravity of sinful people? Where IS this “peace” that God promises??? First, you need to hear what it was that God proclaimed through the angels on the night His Son was born in the flesh, and then you need to learn that the peace God offered then, and the peace He offers now, is a spiritual peace that exists only within and among those who have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ. One day we who know God as “Abba, Father,” will live in His perfect presence and will experience perfect peace in our relationships with others as we live in a world where there is no more sin or fighting or wars. Until then, the peace God offers to us passes human understanding because it is an “inner peace” given to those who are “in the world, but not of the world.” Through the eyes of faith and by the power of the Spirit you can have true spiritual peace of heart and mind even as you live in the midst of conflict because you know Jesus is on the throne and in the end, Jesus will return and will bring peace to the earth! May you draw near to Him and receive the peace He offers you today.