21 Ways to Finding Peace and Happiness (5 page)

The kingdom of heaven, as God intended us to enjoy it, includes being wholly filled with the Holy Spirit. These Scriptures teach us that we must “sell all” to buy the pearl of great price. That simply means we surrender everything we now have in order to gain the one thing we truly need to enjoy kingdom living. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (see Romans 14:17).

Perhaps as you read this book today, you realize you have something against someone. Perhaps God has dealt with you to give up some bitter attitude, but you have stubbornly held on to it, feeling justified in your anger. I tell you that if you will surrender that attitude, God will give you peace in the place of it.

You may spend many days feeling sorry for yourself or being jealous of what someone else has. God has asked you to lay aside those bad attitudes and be content. If you will do so, His peace and joy will fill your life.

People may have more possessions than you do, but they can never have more peace and joy than you do if you follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. It is not what we own that makes us happy and peaceful; He is our joy and our peace.

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ONSECRATED
, D
EDICATED
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IFE
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ESULTS IN
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EACE

God’s Word instructs us to be vessels fit (consecrated) for the Master’s use. To be consecrated is to be set apart for a special use, as these verses explain:

But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also [utensils] of wood and earthenware, and some for honorable and noble [use] and some for menial and ignoble [use]. So whoever cleanses himself [from what is ignoble and unclean, who separates himself from contact with contaminating and corrupting influences] will [then himself] be a vessel set apart and useful for honorable and noble purposes, consecrated and profitable to the Master, fit and ready for any good work. (2 Timothy 2:20–21)

To God, we are precious treasures. According to His great plan, we are vessels He has set aside for a special purpose. God wants to show His glory through us. He wants to use us to bring others to Himself. We are His representatives, His ambassadors here on earth. God is making His appeal to the world through His children (see 2 Corinthians 5:20).

To dedicate is to give, to offer to another, or to set aside for a purpose. If I were to say a room in my house is dedicated to prayer, that would mean I wanted that particular room used primarily for that purpose and not for other things.

I own some dresses that I use only for fancy parties. I have set them aside in a certain place in my closet and keep them inside garment bags for protection. This makes them special; they are not used for ordinary purposes but are set apart for special purposes. That is the way God views us; we are not to be used for the world’s purposes, but for God’s. We are in the world, yet Jesus tells us we are not “of” the world. Don’t be worldly, adopting its ways and methods. Even after we have dedicated ourselves to God, we should rededicate ourselves to our real purpose, as the following verse encourages: “I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

It is not too much for God to ask us to dedicate every facet of our being. It is actually our worship and spiritual service. Under old covenant law, God required animal sacrifices to atone for sin. He no longer wants dead sacrifices; He wants us offering ourselves as “living sacrifices” unto Him for His purpose and use.

There is nothing we can offer to God that He has not first given us, so we are only offering what already belongs to Him anyway. In reality, we are stewards, not owners. Andrew Murray taught in his book
Consecrated to God
that if God gives us everything and we receive everything, then what comes next is very clear: We must give everything back to God again. God gives us a free will so we can freely and willingly give ourselves back to Him. He does not want robots, who have no choice, serving Him. He wants us to
choose
Him! What a privilege, what an honor to give ourselves willingly to Him.

Offer Him your mouth to speak through, your hands to touch through, your feet to walk through, your mind to think through. Dedicate every area of your life to Him, remembering that anything we give to the Lord He gives us back many times over, and we get it back in much better condition than when we gave it.

When I gave my life to the Lord, it was an absolute wreck. He has now given me a life that is wonderful and beyond imagination. Ephesians 3:20 states that He is able to do much more than we could ever imagine if we will give Him the opportunity.

God wants you to enjoy a life of peace, the peace that passes understanding, and it begins by being at peace with Him. This requires regular surrender, consecration, dedication, and a willingness to let God be in the driver’s seat of your life at all times. But beware; you have an enemy who plans to make it difficult to surrender your life to God. Next, we will look at what God’s Word says about that enemy.

Peacekeeper #3
KNOW YOUR ENEMY

I
f finding peace is a struggle for you, it is a sign that your enemy is working hard to keep you from receiving what is rightfully yours. Are you confused about who your real enemy is? According to God’s Word, your enemy is not a person, or even circumstances— it is Satan himself. Knowing your enemy, and the weapons that God has given you to defeat him, is the third way to keep in perfect peace with God.

“For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere” (Ephesians 6:12). We can never win our battles if we are fighting against the wrong source in a wrong way. The source of our troubles is Satan and his demons. We cannot fight him with carnal (natural) weapons, but only with supernatural ones that God gives us for the destruction of Satan’s strongholds (see 2 Corinthians 10:4).

What exactly are these weapons? I believe the weapons God gives include His Word used in preaching, teaching, singing, confession, or meditation. Our weapons are righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and we can and should use these against Satan, our enemy. Yes, peace is a weapon! The Bible talks about putting on the shoes of peace. Righteousness is a weapon! “By [speaking] the word of truth, in the power of God, with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand [to attack] and for the left hand [to defend]” (2 Corinthians 6:7).

Through faith in Christ we are placed in right standing with God. And by faith, we are covered with His robe of righteousness (see Isaiah 61:10 AMP). In other words, because we are trusting in Jesus Christ’s righteousness to cover us, God views us as right instead of wrong. His righteousness becomes a shield that protects us from Satan. He absolutely hates it when a child of God really knows who he or she is “in Christ.”

In and of ourselves, we are less than nothing; our righteousness is like filthy rags, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (see Isaiah 64:6; Romans 3:23). But we are justified and given a right relationship with God through faith.

“Therefore, since we are justified (acquitted, declared righteous, and given a right standing with God) through faith, let us [grasp the fact that we] have [the peace of reconciliation to hold and to enjoy] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)” (Romans 5:1). This Scripture teaches us that righteousness brings peace and joy. When we feel all wrong about ourselves, we do not have peace. Satan seeks to condemn us in order to steal our peace. Remember that Satan is your enemy, and you need to know that it is he who tries to make you feel bad about yourself. He works to steal your peace.

Satan uses people and circumstances, but they are not our real enemy; he is. He finds things and people through whom he can work and delights in watching us fight and war without ever realizing he is the source.

When Satan used Peter to try and divert Jesus from going to Jerusalem to complete the task God had sent Him to do, “Jesus
turned away
from Peter and said to him, Get behind Me, Satan! You are in My way [an offense and a hindrance and a snare to Me]” (Matthew 16:23, italics mine). Satan used Peter, but Jesus knew that Peter was not His real problem. He
turned away
from Peter and addressed the source of His temptation. We need to look beyond what we see or initially feel and seek to know the source of our problems too.

Usually we blame people and become angry with them, which only complicates and compounds the problem. When we behave in this manner, we are actually playing right into Satan’s hands and helping his plans succeed. We also blame circumstances and sometimes even God, which also delights Satan.

Yes, we need to know our enemy—not only who he is but what his character is like. The Bible encourages us to know the character of God so we can place faith in Him and what He says. Likewise, we should know Satan’s character so we do not listen to or believe his lies.

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ATAN
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IAR

First and foremost, Satan is a liar, and Jesus called him “the father of lies” (John 8:44 NIV). All lies originate with him. He lies to us in order to deceive us. When a person is deceived, he believes lies. This is a terrible condition to be in, for one does not know that he believes lies. The lies are his reality because he believes them.

For example, I believed the lie from Satan that I would never overcome my abusive past. I believed I would always be tainted, second best, and soiled merchandise because of the things that had happened to me in my childhood. As long as I believed these things, I was trapped in my past. I could not really go forward and enjoy the future God had always planned for me (see Ephesians 2:10). I could not receive it because I was not aware of it. I believed what Satan said because I did not know what God had said.

I was miserable, hopeless, bitter, and in turmoil all because Satan was lying to me, and I believed his lies. When I began to study God’s Word and His truth started renewing my mind, I knew Satan for what he is: a liar!

People who have had long-standing financial pressure are often convinced by Satan’s lies that things will always be the way they are. The enemy tells them they will never have anything, never own a decent car or have a nice house. They believe they will never have enough, and so it becomes reality for them. We receive what we believe, whether what we believe is positive or negative.

God’s Word says that He wants us to prosper (see Deuteronomy 29:9). It states we can and will be blessed in every way when we walk in God’s statutes. Satan seeks to keep people hopeless. Hopelessness steals our God-given peace and joy.

Refuse to be hopeless. Be like Abraham, of whom it is said that although he had no reason to hope, he hoped on in faith that God’s promises would come to pass in his life. As he waited he gave praise and glory to God, and Satan was not able to defeat him with doubt and unbelief (see Romans 4:18–20).

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ATAN
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HIEF

I often repeat John 10:10, which states that “the thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy.” The passage is referring to Satan and his system. Just as God has a system that He encourages us to live by, and He promises blessings if we do, Satan has a system and his hope is that we will live by it so he can steal our blessings. Remember, he wants to prevent us from having righteousness, peace, and joy.

He steals through lying, and all of his tactics are connected in some way. They are all perverse in nature and the opposite of anything God would have for us. Satan steals from us through fear. Actually we receive from Satan through fear, just as we receive from God through faith. One might say that
fear is faith in what Satan says.
Fear threatens us with thoughts of harm or disappointment. Satan shows us a circumstance and then makes us afraid it will never change. God wants us to believe His Word is true even while we are still in the midst of the circumstances. Romans 8:37 says, “Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us.”

In God’s economy, we must believe before we will see change or the good things we desire. Satan seeks to steal our vision and hope for the future. He tries to steal our sense of right standing with God through guilty feelings and condemnation, through self-rejection and even self-hatred. He steals our joy because the joy of the Lord is our strength, and he wants us to be weak.

Satan is a thief. He tries to steal every good thing that Jesus died to give us. Jesus gave us peace as our inheritance, but Satan does everything he can to rob us of it.

Recognize your enemy, know him, and stand aggressively against him.

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ATAN
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EGALIST

You may already have deep furrows in your brow, trying to figure out what I could possibly mean by the statement that Satan is a legalist. This is what I mean: He pressures us to be perfect, to live without making mistakes, to never, never break any of the religious rules. When we do make mistakes—which everyone does—he then tries to make us feel condemned by our guilt because we have not followed all the rules and regulations.

What rules and regulations am I talking about? The ones some so-called religious organizations and systems impose. These include things like praying for certain amounts of time, doing good works, reading a certain amount of the Bible each day, observing religious holidays, and using various formulas that will supposedly give us God’s approval.