John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Something that I have heard from people over the years is they like the ideas of the Bible, but don’t feel the need to subscribe to Christianity. Maybe you’ve heard it too. People say Jesus was a good moral teacher, but not the Son of God, so therefore not worth worshipping. The issue with this thought is we cannot follow those moral teachings alone. We need Jesus. We need His peace.
If I stopped all the “spiritual” stuff and just focused on the way Jesus lived and the way He taught us to treat each other, what would I have? I would be subscribing to rule-based living with a pretty good track record. Don’t gossip about people (would probably help me keep friends), honor your father and mother (would probably help me stay connected to my family), don’t lie or steal (great rules to follow so I don’t go to jail), etc. These things are meant to keep me trouble-free. To give me worldly peace. Or problem-free living. I follow the Bible’s rules to gain peace over my circumstances. The HUGE problem with this is that the Bible itself tells us that following its rules won’t bring us to peaceful, problem-free living. It tells us that problem-free living doesn’t exist. But having peace IN THE MIDST of your problems does exist and that is exactly what Jesus offers.
We are bound to fail. Often. We set goals and don’t achieve them. We say things we regret. We do things we regret. I can think of enough things that I want to change about yesterday alone that it makes my head hurt. The beauty of the peace that Jesus brings is that my failure is not what defines me. The peace we have from Jesus is the peace of knowing that, thanks to the death and resurrection of Jesus, we already have conquered the World. Beat it!
This week step into the knowledge that you are not your circumstances. Know that you don’t want “problem-free living” because you know that your problems are not who you are. You are a child of the Living God who has already overcome your problems and the world.
And that is one great reason why Jesus is much better than just a moral teacher.