The Peace of Christ

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

–Colossians 3:15

What does it mean to trust God? To have a trusting heart means allowing our confidence in God’s character to govern our inward emotions and our outward behavior.

Think about the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus obeyed God completely because He trusted God completely. His life was absent of any inward turmoil, regardless of what was happening on the outside, because He trusted in the wisdom and the goodness of God’s plan for Him. And Jesus wants us to experience that same peace in our lives as well. That’s why, in Colossians 3:15, Paul said, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”

In this verse, the phrase “the peace of Christ” not only means the peace that comes from Christ, but it also means the peace that characterized the life of Christ. Did Jesus go around with inner turmoil? Was He threatened whenever people were against Him? Did He allow outward circumstances to destroy His confidence in God? Not at all. Jesus had complete trust in God’s power, God’s love, and God’s wisdom. Therefore, He obeyed God completely. Paul was saying, “I want the same peace that was in Christ’s life to be in your life.”

Notice Paul said we are to let that peace “rule in [our] hearts.” The Greek word translated as “rule” is an athletic term that meant to umpire or officiate. So Paul was saying, “Let the peace of Christ make the final call in your life.” I remember reading long ago about an umpires’ convention. One night, some of the umpires were talking about how they made their calls in a difficult game. One umpire said, “I call them the way I see them.” The second umpire said, “I call them the way they are.” The third umpire said, “They’re not anything until I call them.”

Life’s circumstances are just like that. We can’t control the circumstances that get thrown at us, and we can’t control the temptations that entice us. But the fact is, both turmoil from the outside and temptation from the inside are nothing until we call them. So when those difficult things come into your life, let the peace of Christ–the confidence that Christ had in God’s character–have the final say.

We can trust God completely when we let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts.

Today’s devotion is adapted from “Developing a Trusting Heart” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2008.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.