5.25.11

John 14:11 "I (Jesus) am leaving you with a gift -- Peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give you is a gift the world cannot give.  So don't be troubled or afraid."

My Thoughts

Imagine if we went about spreading peace of mind. Imagine if we all recognized peace of mind as the wonderful blessing that it is? Jesus himself said that peace of mind and heart is a gift... a gift the world cannot give.  Just think how our anger at one another destroys somebody's peace of mind.  I know when somebody is angry with me I don't feel at peace.  When we withhold praise of the people we love we often take away their peace of mind. We take away our own peace of mind too when we do things that are directly against what God teaches us. When we break God's commandments...when we don't listen to the Holy Spirit inside us prompting us to do good. Jesus made it simple "Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as you love yourself." (Matthew 22:37-38) When we love somebody we do what they ask... what makes them happy... to show our love to God we should do the same.  We should go about showing love to others too... we should give the person at the check out at the store peace of mind.  How can we do this? Easy be nice, be patient... leave earlier to shop if we have to so we won't be in a hurry.  Give the people that cross our path that smile of approval and love. Be kind and loving to our friends and family.. guard our words... speak words of love and praise and kindness. Never act in a way that makes somebody dread seeing you.  Jesus wants us to love ourselves too, after all how can we love others if we don't love us!  How do we love ourselves??? One, we forgive ourselves...once we ask God to forgive us we forgive ourselves... we can't be the best we can be if we are living with guilt all the time. God tells us to forgive others.. God wants us to forgive ourselves too. Another way to love ourselves is to be honest with ourselves...totally honest.  An example of this is when we spend money we know we don't have... we convince ourselves that what we buy will make us feel better...when in fact it robs us of our peace of mind...we get home and don't even enjoy the what we thought we had to have for worrying about spending money we didn't have.  We have to be honest with ourselves about everything...when we are honest with ourselves we can fix what needs to be fixed... we can do what needs to be done..and we can go about with peace of mind.

The things of this world don't bring peace... God's love, the love of Jesus, the love of others.. loving ourselves is where we find peace.  We all go about looking for love... but as the song says ... in all the wrong places.  God is love!  We need to look to God for love... and to get love we have to love... when we love others... love comes back to us every time. It may not come back from the person we are loving, maybe because they don't know how to love themselves...but it always comes back in some form. When we go about spreading love and happiness and joy we just feel better about ourselves... we feel better about others.

What better gift can we give others than love, than peace of mind and heart? There is no better gift.  Jesus in all His wisdom understood this way beyond what our minds are even capable of.  Jesus knew it was important enough to label it as a gift.  When we go about our day we don't need to spread anxiety, anger, despair.  We need to spread love and peace of mind.  Anger and impatience and unkindness takes from people... but when we spread the fruits of the spirit which are  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) we spread the gift of peace of mind and heart.  We show love in its purest form. These are gifts we can give to every path we cross. Imagine going about our day giving out gifts to everyone we meet!  We can!