Daily D – Philippians 4:6-9

by David Bowman | Dec 15, 2023 | Daily D | 0 comments

Philippians 4:6-9 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. (NLT)

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This is the time of year people complain there is no peace on earth, and they’re right. Why hasn’t God blessed us with this peace? I mean, almost every beauty contestant wants peace on earth. Newspaper pundits complain about the lack of peace even though if there was such a thing it would put them out of business.

U2 has a song entitled Peace on Earth. We find these words toward the end:

Jesus in the song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won’t rhyme
So what’s it worth?
This peace on Earth*

We blame God for the lack of peace. We blame the other political party. We blame anyone and everyone we can think of, except for us, of course.

Reading the Apostle Paul’s instructions in this text, we begin to understand that we participate with God in bringing peace on earth. Peacemaking is a God-blessed lifestyle (See Matthew 5:9).

Peace is connected to prayer, Paul says. God’s peace guards our hearts and minds. We cooperate by focusing on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise.

To prayer and positive thoughts, Paul adds practice. He tells his readers to put into practice all they learned and received from him. God’s peace is with us when we pray, focus on the positive, and live in a manner that makes peace possible.

This sounds like we get about as much peace as we want. In other words, God will not impose peace on unwilling souls. This also sounds like we can be part of the problem or part of the peace.

*Songwriters: Adam Clayton / Dave Evans / Larry Mullen / Paul David Hewson
Peace on Earth lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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I will live in a manner that I join God in bringing peace on earth.

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Our Father, you have made peace possible. You will bring peace ultimately and finally one day. Until then, empower us to do the hard work of peacemaking. Make us ever-more prayerful. Teach us to refocus our lives on what is good. Lead us into activities that will create more peace. Amen.

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