Have you ever thought that peace has to be built on something? Trust in God is the foundation on which peace is built. This daily devotional looks at how trusting in God brings stability, security, and protection – which leads to peace.
Nuggets
- Stable things bring us security, which brings us peace.
- Trust in God brings security because it brings God’s promises with it.
- We will spend eternity in peace with our Heavenly Father.
- If we put our trust in the feelings, we won’t have stability, security, and protection when the trial winds start blowing.
Devotions in the Peace Leads to Tranquility series
Let's Put It into Context
We’ve talked about peace several times. Peace is an inward tranquility or composure of the mind resulting from a balanced life with spiritual order, equity, and truth.
Glossary
Peace isn’t just the absence of conflict. It is a positive condition.
God wants disciples of Christ to experience peace in the midst of conflict. We can do that when we put our faith and trust in Him.
Trust is assurance that the promises of God are true. It is that bone-deep knowledge that God is going to do what He says.
Maclaren stated that the word means to hang on to something. It paints a picture of not letting go.
Resource
Trust in God Brings Stability
“Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion. It cannot be shaken; it remains forever” (Ps. 125: 1 CSB)
Stable things bring us security, which brings us peace. By trusting in God, we get safety in God.
I have heard about Mount Zion all my life, but I am a little shaky on what it is. When I read the definition for Zion in the Holman Bible Dictionary, I said to myself, “That’s why.”
Oh, Mount Zion is a mountain. Well, it is more of a “… fortified hill of pre-Israelite Jerusalem between the Kedron and Tyropean valleys.”
Resource
I thought it was interesting that the definition said that the “stronghold of Zion” may have only been talking about the fortified sections. This is important when we realize Jerusalem incorporated villages and houses outside of this fortified area. These days, we might say Jerusalem and all of its suburbs.
But then, Scriptures didn’t use the term to just talk about mountains. Zion was also used to refer to Solomon’s temple.
If that isn’t confusing enough, the term was also used to talk about the nation of Israel as a whole. So, we’ve got a mountain, a building, and a nation.
Let’s add to the confusion. The term was also used to talk about the heavenly Jerusalem. Add future city to the list.
But look at that list — a mountain, a building, a nation, and a future city. We think of those as some pretty stable things.
This stability isn’t a fly-by-night peace. This is an eternal peace. Even when this world is dead and gone, God’s peace will still be around.
Jarvie told us what is securing this peace for us.
- “The almightiness of God
- “His unerring wisdom
- “His unchanging love”
Resource
We refer to God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present. That does make Him all-mighty.
We have to put our trust in God. We have to open our eyes like Elisha’s servant did. “And Elisha prayed, ‘Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (II Kgs. 6: 17).
The servant thought he and Elisha were fighting the battle outnumbered. Ooo, baby. Was he wrong!
The Homilist contended that security is conditional. We have to have the trust in order to have the security.
How do we tap into these defenses? “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1: 18 CSB).
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We have to get from the head knowledge down to the heart knowledge level. We have to ABCD.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Trust in God Brings Security
“The mountains surround Jerusalem and the Lord surrounds his people, both now and forever” (Ps. 125: 2 CSB)
Trust in God brings security because it brings God’s promises with it. One of those promises is God doesn’t abandon us.
Maclaren reminded us that Mount Zion was just one of the mountains that surrounded Jerusalem. We are surrounded by God. He is not going to let anything slip through His defenses that isn’t in His plan.
Resource
But being surrounded also means something else. We are close to the almighty God.
When the lack of stability strips away our peace, we begin to think God isn’t there with us. We begin to think that He has abandoned us.
God hasn’t.
Ooo, baby. Hoyt just out all of this into perspective. He said this Psalm is about when the remnant returned from exile. What they came back to was a city in ruins.
Resource
Think of the destruction, but then think of the mountains.
No, God didn’t stop the invading army. Jerusalem lost. The Israelites were taken captive.
But the mountains are still there. God is still loving them and calling to them for obedience.
Yeah, God encircles us with protection. But He also disciplines us when we need it. Hoyt also said that “… a forgiven man is by no means a perfect man.”
Resource
We remember what perfect is. The perfected state indicates spiritual wholeness or completeness. That isn’t going to happen until Heaven.
Glossary
What this verse is talking about is security. Disciples of Christ will encounter spiritual warfare, but we are secure when we are secure in our trust of God.
I love the point that Spurgeon made in The Security of the Church. We read in books of history about how early Christians were sport for the gladiators and lions.
That stopped. Why? Because Satan found out he wasn’t accomplishing his purpose when he was attacking the church as a whole.
Did Satan give up in defeat? No, he started attacking us with slander, false teachers, and division.
The type of attack doesn’t matter. Regardless of our outcome, “no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, declares the LORD” (Isa. 54: 17 ESV).
God will be victorious in the end. That should give us a ton of security.
Trust in God Brings Protection
“The scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous, so that the righteous will not apply their hands to injustice” (Ps. 125: 3 CSB)
God’s ultimate victory should also show us that we will be delivered from Satan’s treachery. Satan cannot defeat us when we are under the Lord’s protection. We will spend eternity in peace with our Heavenly Father.
We’ve talked before about the curse after the original sin. “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3: 15 CSB).
We see that as the promise of Jesus. But isn’t that the promise of judgment day, also? “Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire” (Rev. 20: 14 CSB).
Trust in God Brings Peace
“Do what is good, Lord, to the good, to those whose hearts are upright. But as for those who turn aside to crooked ways, the Lord will banish them with the evildoers. Peace be with Israel” (Ps. 125: 4-5 CSB)
I know. We finally get around to the peace part. But can we have peace if we don’t have stability, security, and protection?
Well, yes, we can. We don’t have those because we put our trust in feelings. We have them because we put our trust in God.
Period. End of story.
If we put our trust in the feelings, we won’t have stability, security, and protection when the trial winds start blowing. We will be concentrating too much on the howling winds.
Instead, we need to be concentrating on the Lord. We have to make sure our hearts are upright.
Disciples of Christ need to stay on the narrow path. We don’t, as Dickson pointed out, want God to call us hypocrites.
Resource
Instead, we want the peace that only God gives to those who trust Him. McMichael noted that “theirs is a peace which the world can neither give nor take away.” We are confident of that peace because of the stability we enjoy.
Resource
Making the Connections
Sometimes, we think that none of the bad stuff should happen to disciples of Christ. That is not the case.
When the trials come, we have stability because of the mountain. We are not alone because of the city. When we run to the temple for shelter, we will get it. And we will have it forever and ever when we are residents of the eternal city.
Jarvie put it this way. He wrote, “Having a hold of God, they cannot be permanently injured in their highest and eternal relations. Moved they may be, but never removed; ‘perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.’”
Resource
The Homilist told us that putting our trust in God strengthens our love, faith, and purpose.
Resource
It is all predicated around our trusting God. Not trusting ourselves. Not trusting our jobs. Not trusting our significant other.
Trusting God alone. “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” (Jer. 17: 7-8 NIV).
The peace comes because we are trusting Truth, not the lies of chaos. We are trusting the One who loves us unconditionally and everlastingly.
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
Peace is an attitude. We can discipline ourselves in our attitudes. We can grow our trust.
How Do We Apply This?
Spurgeon said that it is a very simple thing to trust the Lord. Part of me says yes. Part of me says no.
Yes, it is easy to trust God because we don’t have to clean up our acts in order to gain a His attention or love — or His acceptance.
God is asking us to genuinely ABCD. We have to decide if we are going to do that or not.
I think that can be a hard decision for some, so I don’t want to minimize that process. No, we don’t have to have the smarts or the education, as Spurgeon said.
What we do have to have is the submissive attitude. That is hard for some people.
It all comes down to a decision. Spurgeon wrote, “Trusting in the Lord is taking at His word One who cannot lie, or change, or fail; and certainly this is no great feat if we look at it from the carnal man’s own point of view. At the same time, it is very right.”
Resource
Sometimes, that decision can be easy. Sometimes, it can be hard. In the end, we have to give up our desires to understand everything and just go with trusting God.
However, we have to grow our trust until it is a steadfast trust. Spurgeon also wrote, “Believers are too often tossed about in their minds, and suffer great shakings and movings of heart because they do not trust in the Lord as they should. These things ought not to be, for we ought to be steadfast and immovable; but by reason of infirmity and immaturity many are tossed to and fro as with a tempest.”
Resource
Ooo, baby. We can’t remain milk babies. We have to grow to steak adults. Steak adults trust God wholeheartedly.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Make it a goal to grow your trust in God today.
Father. We trust You. We want that to be part of the foundation of our relationships with You. That will bring us peace. Amen.
What do you think?
Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
If you don’t understand something and would like further clarification, please contact me.
If you have not signed up for the email daily or weekly providing the link to the devotions and the newsletter, do so below.
If God has used this devotion to speak with you, consider sharing it on social media.
Pingback: God Is the Only Peace for Man – Seeking God with Elaine
Pingback: Peace Starts with Getting Right with God – Seeking God with Elaine
Pingback: What Is Peace? – Seeking God with Elaine
Pingback: Peace Gained Through Prayer – Seeking God with Elaine
Pingback: God’s Law Creates Peace – Seeking God with Elaine