Peace in ChristIs this your experience?
In the heart of Christ there was perfect peace. He was never elated by applause nor dejected by censure or disappointment. Amid opposition and cruel treatment, He was still of good courage. HLv 221
I was really impacted in meditating on this statement over the past few months.
Is this your experience?  I must admit that I struggle, at times … well, actually, often.  Yet, listen to this:

When we are born from above, the same mind will be in us that was in Jesus…Those who take Christ at His word, and surrender their lives to His ordering, will find peace. Nothing of the world can make them sad when Jesus makes them glad by His presence.

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.” Isaiah 26:3.  HLv 221

The more we know of God, the more intense will be our happiness. As we walk with Jesus in this life, we may be filled with His love, satisfied with His presence. All that human nature can bear, we may receive here.
HLv 222

Why is this not our continual experience?  Let’s continue the first quote:
In the heart of Christ there was perfect peace. He was never elated by applause nor dejected by censure or disappointment. Amid opposition and cruel treatment, He was still of good courage. But many of His followers have an anxious, troubled heart, because they are afraid to trust God. They shrink from the consequences of complete surrender to Him. But unless they make this surrender, they cannot find peace.
{ HLv 221.2 }
Ouch!  The bottom line is that if we are not at peace we haven’t fully surrendered to God!
I have found that it is easy to deceive myself regarding surrender, but this test of peace is a safeguard if I truly desire to surrender fully.  Intellectually we surrender, but at the heart level we struggle.  Sometimes I think we are so used to not being completely at peace that we don’t recognize that we aren’t … but “All that human nature can bear, we may receive here.”  Do we want it?  Or are we satisfied with less because less is more familiar to us?

We must have more than an intellectual belief in the truth… When truth is held as truth only by the conscience, when the heart is not stimulated and made receptive, only the mind is affected. But when the truth is received as truth by the heart, it has passed through the conscience, and has captivated the soul with its pure principles. It is placed in the heart by the Holy Spirit, who reveals its beauty to the mind, that its transforming power may be seen in thecharacter.—The Review and Herald, February 14, 1899. { Ev 291.1}

Truth must be received into the soul; it claims the homage of the will. If truth could be submitted to the reason alone, pride would be no hindrance in the way of its reception. But it is to be received through the work of grace in the heart; and its reception depends upon the renunciation of every sin that the Spirit of God reveals. Man’s advantages for obtaining a knowledge of the truth, however great these may be, will prove of no benefit to him unless the heart is open to receive the truth, and there is a conscientious surrender of every habit and practice that is opposed to its principles. To those who thus yield themselves to God, having an honest desire to know and to do His will, the truth is revealed as the power of God for their salvation. These will be able to distinguish between him who speaks for God, and him who speaks merely from himself. The Pharisees had not put their will on the side of God’s will. They were not seeking to know the truth, but to find some excuse for evading it; Christ showed that this was why they did not understand His teaching. { DA 455.3}

How important, not only for our own salvation, but for the effectiveness of our ministries that we make a conscientious surrender of every habit and practice that would rob us of that perfect peace!
There is no anger or pain in perfect peace; no desire for revenge or even walls of protection … But there is joy, even in difficult circumstances, and there is complete, child-like trust.
We can’t get to this place of peace without surrendering our fears, desires, anger, etc., and allowing God to replace those things with His perfect peace.  Then asking Him to keep us in that place of peace until it becomes so familiar to us that we’re uncomfortable, and recognize immediately when we’re being lured out of it.
May you experience it fully this month.
I’m praying for you!
By Erna McCann
Erna McCann
Latest posts by Erna McCann