Try Jesus

FROM ancient times, men have longed to have peace. Not merely for wars to stop and swords be changed to ploughs but for peace of mind and heart and soul.

In the early days of Israel, the benediction was, “The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” (Numbers 6:26). Our Moslem brothers say, “Salaam aleikum” meaning “Peace be unto you”.

High-minded, self-sacrificing men and women have worked for world peace and spent many hours, day and night, and millions of pounds/dollars seeking it. Many have drafted and signed treaties for peace but wars soon break out regardless.

After World War 1, a $100,000 (obscene sum at the time) prize was offered for a plan to ensure universal peace. Over 22 000 plans were submitted in the contest. The judges debated long and hard over several but swiftly passed up the shortest and most sensible plan of all: “Try Jesus.”

Why wouldn’t we try Jesus? It is the only plan that will work. Yet man is trying to cure the world’s ills with remedies that have failed a thousand times. At Zimbabwe’s independence, we were surprised when Robert Mugabe and his comrades were masquerading as socialists, an ideology that had failed in its countries of origin. Somebody said it’s like whipping a dead donkey. It just will not work.

The world is talking peace but preparing for war. We have the Iranian and Korean question. We read that when the machine gun was invented, Hudson Maxim thought the gun would not make war more horrifying but rather more impossible. Today, the gun has been improved so much that it fires a thousand bullets a minute.

The problem is with humans, as long as man has his sinful heart, this world will never be free from war. New weapons of whatever range, no matter how terrible, do not put an end to war or cause man to pose before deploying them with deadly consequences. So, how does one find peace in these raging storms?

Some children were asked to draw what their impression of peace was. Among the drawings was one symbolising angry, dark clouds gathering in the sky and a little bird, sitting peacefully in its nest in the cleft of a rock. What an interesting illustration. Peace is not the absence of wars or troubles. This side of eternity, wars are part of us but Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you” (John 14:27). “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.” (John 16:33).

The peace that brings calm to the soul and, through each individual, to the world is found nowhere else. It is Jesus who brings an end to discord of life. It is He who brings music to the feast of living.

Whenever there is sin, which is the transgression of God’s Law, there can never be peace. “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.” (Isaiah 57:20). Is this not why most world peace plans are abortive? The solution is not out there but in here, in the human heart, because the heart is evil continually.

Ever heard of mirages? They happen in deserts. A silver stream appears suddenly, as if by magic. It will look beautiful to the traveller, with a promise to quench his thirst. But as quickly and mysteriously as this strange stream appeared, it vanishes out of sight. The sun feels hotter and the desert dustier than ever after that. So it is with the disappointed hopes of man. They “looked for peace, but no good came” (Jeremiah 8:15).They see world peace on the horizon, but it always proved to be a mirage.

We know that one day the mirage shall become a pool, that’s at the beginning of eternity. “The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water” (Isaiah 35:7). But we need not wait for that day. God promises us peace now! “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also.” (John 14:1-3).

Let us explore four reasons in the above text on why a Christians must have peace in this life:

¨ Believe in God

When we have real faith in God, we stop worrying. Jesus called Him father and God is our father too. We pray “Our father who art in heaven…” When we were little children, we never worried about what we were going to eat, drink, wear, whether we would get sick, live or die. We left all worrying to mom and dad. They would take care of everything. They knew everything and they loved us.

If God is our heavenly father, why should we ever worry? Why should we not have peace in our hearts? Why should we worry about losing our jobs; worry about getting ulcers or cancer? “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3). Let us have faith in God as a child has faith in his father.

¨ If you believe in God, believe also in me

We shall not worry if we believe in Jesus. He is the Saviour of the world. We must believe that He died for our sins. No one needs to carry a terrible burden of sin, a violated conscience that will not let him rest day or night. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). So if we just confess and forsake our sins, we need not worry more about them, no matter how we feel. Our salvation is not based on feeling, but fact: the very promise of God in Christ.

¨ In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

Yours truly has never been in a mansion before, let alone own one. But God promises that there is a home waiting for us, in heaven beyond. We will not be left alone in the cold with no place to go. This life as we know it is not the end of the story; the cemetery is not the final resting place; the last word is not said at the funeral.

Things that are so cruel, so unjust, so hard to understand in this world will be straightened out in the next. I’m glad God is going to sort that out. There is a place for God’s people, heaven is a place; it is real, and Jesus will be there, and where Jesus is we want to be also.

Though your heart may be broken today because of the waves, let not your heart be troubled. If you believe in God’s land of tomorrow, beyond the sighing and the crying, beyond the tears, beyond the night, beyond the heartache, you have confidence that God’s tomorrow will be better than today.

¨ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Look at the condition of our world today: war famines earthquakes, tsunamis, sickness, confusion, wickedness and sorrow. Hearts are failing for fear. Jesus was here once, and He will be back. The world has not seen the last of Him. There shall be distress among nations, with perplexity; But ‘let not your heart be troubled.’  His second coming is not very far-off, signs are fast fulfilling. Natural disasters have quadrupled in the last five years. The Bible says” the earth shall wax old like a garment,” (Isaiah 51:6) and it’s tearing all over. No one can patch it any more!

“Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).