6/7/09

Perfect peace

This blossoming tree reminds me of the movie "The last Samurai". Towards the end of the movie the dying renegade warlord sees a perfect blossom and experiences a moment of perfect peace. How many people long for just such a moment? How many will ever find it? If they do, is it genuine or just imagined? Consider that the things in this world are a creation; ordained by a greater intelligence than our own; therefore to look for truth we must seek something greater than the physical and that would entail spirituality. Jesus was about to die and he knew it. He tells his disciples about his peace in the following passage from the book of John.

Joh 14:22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, what has happened that you are about to reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?"
Joh 14:23 Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.
Joh 14:24 He who doesn't love me doesn't keep my words. The word which you hear isn't mine, but the Father's who sent me.
Joh 14:25 I have said these things to you, while still living with you.
Joh 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you.
Joh 14:27 Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, give I to you. Don't let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.
Joh 14:28 You heard how I told you, 'I go away, and I come to you.' If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I said 'I am going to my Father;' for the Father is greater than I.
Joh 14:29 Now I have told you before it happens so that, when it happens, you may believe.
Joh 14:30 I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me.
Joh 14:31 But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father commanded me, even so I do. Arise, let us go from here.
Peace, grounded in love and faithfulness, it has its perfection in heaven with the father and empowered in this world by the Holy Spirit and seen in the life of Jesus. For his followers, it is directly tied to their faith and love in God. To have perfect peace, love God with the whole heart and follow HIM as best you can. Since God transcends time and space, so his capacity to give you perfect peace is beyond the beauty of anything of this Earth. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the LORD endures forever.