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The Friend on the Road and Other Studies in the Gospels: Chapter 53 - The Gift of Peace

By John Henry Jowett


      "My peace I give unto you."--John xiv. 27.

      BUT a soul may possess the peace of Christ and yet know no end of trouble. Indeed, round about these words of our Lord there are other words which look like unfriendly presences frowning in apparent contradiction. "The world hateth you"; "They shall put you out of the synagogue"; "Ye shall weep and lament"! These are very strange ingredients in a life which is supposed to be possessed by peace. The peace of Jesus is evidently not synonymous with the quietness of settled circumstance. It is not the peace of plenty. It is something which is independent of these. It can co-exist with turbulence. It can go hand in hand with want. The circumference of life may be the realm of storm, while its centre is the home of a profound serenity. The peace of Jesus is the harmony of a central and spiritual relation. It is union and communion with God. The soul is at rest. Its vagrancy is over. It no longer seeks a new doorstep every night; it has found a settled home.

      If peace were only a matter of quieted circumstances we might win it for ourselves. We could seek and find it in social reconstructions, in juster laws, in more enlightened economy, in ampler comforts, in a larger purse. But if vital peace is supremely a matter of spiritual relations, how is it to be found? And, especially, if it is the restoration of a broken relation, who can reset the disjointed limb and put it right again? This peace is not the work of the will. It is not an acquisition of human ingenuity. It is a gift, and it is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. "My peace I give unto you." He came to bring the wanderer home. He came to change our shifting, rickety tent for a settled abode. He came to end the appalling divorce which is the work of sin. He came to put us right with God, and to transform a sinful and restless vagrancy into a holy peace.

      And if we receive the Saviour's gift of peace our life will have two distinctions--and these are only two of the many royalties which belong to the reconciled soul. First of all, we shall see things tranquilly. We shall have an eye "made quiet by the power of harmony." We shall therefore see things as they are; they will not be out of proportion; nor shall we be deceived by any borrowed plumes. "The eyes of them that see shall not be dim." And, for a second thing, if we have the peace of Jesus, we shall do things tranquilly. This central peace will affect our activities on the circumference. There will be no fuss, no feverishness, no panic. No energy will lead away in fretfulness and wasteful care. We shall have the strength of stillness. For God's peace, that surpasses all our dreams, shall keep guard over our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

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See Also:
   Chapter 1 - Critics and Surgeons
   Chapter 2 - The Challenge of the Closed Door
   Chapter 3 - How the Best Things Become Ours
   Chapter 4 - Sixpennyworth of Miracle
   Chapter 5 - The Peace of the Larger Life
   Chapter 6 - Education by Contagion
   Chapter 7 - The Tares Among the Wheat
   Chapter 8 - Things New and Old
   Chapter 9 - The Buoyancy of Faith
   Chapter 10 - Sound the Great Recall
   Chapter 11 - The Bright Cloud
   Chapter 12 - Mercy and Obligation
   Chapter 13 - The Simplification of Life
   Chapter 14 - Life's Perilous Heats
   Chapter 15 - Feverishness
   Chapter 16 - The Truly Sensational Life
   Chapter 17 - The Dominant Passion
   Chapter 18 - Doing the Impossible
   Chapter 19 - The Life I Should Live
   Chapter 20 - The Blessing and Discipline of Retirement
   Chapter 21 - Endless Possibilities
   Chapter 22 - The Price of Liberty
   Chapter 23 - The Dynamics of Expulsion
   Chapter 24 - Evils That Never Arrive
   Chapter 25 - Returning in Power
   Chapter 26 - The Old Tackle and the New Presence
   Chapter 27 - The Noble Dissatisfaction
   Chapter 28 - The Malady of Not Wanting
   Chapter 29 - Sentimentaltsm
   Chapter 30 - The Pedantic Conscience
   Chapter 31 - A Receiver of Wrecks
   Chapter 32 - The Supreme Test
   Chapter 33 - Fainting
   Chapter 34 - Doing the Impossible
   Chapter 35 - Divine Visitations
   Chapter 36 - Self-Possession
   Chapter 37 - The Treacherous Kiss
   Chapter 38 - The Friend on the Road
   Chapter 39 - Dull Scholars
   Chapter 40 - The Unknown Christ
   Chapter 41 - The Worst and the Best
   Chapter 42 - Increase and Decrease
   Chapter 43 - Hating the Light
   Chapter 44 - Heroic Goodness
   Chapter 45 - Living Words
   Chapter 46 - The Last Bridge
   Chapter 47 - The Ministry of Infusion
   Chapter 48 - Breaking the Awful Silence
   Chapter 49 - Preparing for the Miracle
   Chapter 50 - The Inner Door
   Chapter 51 - The Revelation in the After Days
   Chapter 52 - The Troubled Heart
   Chapter 53 - The Gift of Peace
   Chapter 54 - Settling Down in Christ
   Chapter 55 - The Joy of the Lord
   Chapter 56 - The Joy of Christian Life
   Chapter 57 - The Sense of Mission
   Chapter 58 - Living at Second Hand
   Chapter 59 - The Great Act of Receiving

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