TAKING AWAY THE CHASTISEMENT OF OUR PEACE
First thing this morning, I got a text from a friend in
Chicago, reading: “HE LIVES!” What a wonderful truth. And because we believe he
lives and have taken Jesus Christ as our Lord, we are sons and daughters of
God. We have received supernatural status and all the benefits of having the
spirit of Christ in us. Does Satan want us to experience the benefits?
Absolutely not. Satan’s greatest joy is to destroy God’s people, and he has
many ways to do it.
Today, in this season of Easter, we are reminded that all
the evils the devil tries to carry out on mankind have been supernaturally
wiped out by the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah
53 is one place in the Bible where we go to see many of the things Jesus
conquered as he became a human sacrifice for our sins and then defeated death
itself, all for God and for us.
Today, I want to look at one of the things, “the
chastisement of our peace was upon him” (Isa. 53:5b). What does it
mean? I looked up the Hebrew word for chastisement to find the answer. In many
scriptures using the word chastisement, it’s talking about God correcting His
people, and that’s a good thing. However, the Hebrew word is also used in
Jeremiah 30:14, which talks about the chastisement of a cruel one, Literally
with blows, thrashings, and beatings. This is the kind of chastisement Isaiah
53:5 is referring to.
So, how does that relate to the chastisement of our
peace”? God wants us always to be able to grab onto peace of mind, even in bad
situations. In Psalm 23:4, David tells us: “Though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.”
Satan is always trying to attack our right to have peace
of mind. He says, “No! You can’t have peace; you have to worry, fear, be
stressed out, be depressed. You can’t have peace of mind when things are
going so wrong for you and your loved ones.” That is Satan chastising us by
pounding us with stressful incidents, scary incidents, hard choices to make,
problems that seem impossible to solve, and a multitude of other negative peace
breakers.
But Satan is a liar! Jesus took all Satan’s chastisements
(beatings) for us and nailed them to the cross. Then he rose again to continue
to help us every day to say no to the beatings! In place of the stress, the depression,
worry, and fear, Jesus gave us supernatural spiritual peace. It’s different;
it’s not natural; sometimes, it doesn’t even seem to make sense at all, but
we’ve got it. That’s because we choose to live in a supernatural realm where
Jesus is Lord, and God is our spiritual heavenly Father, and the kingdom is not
regulated by the devil and his bashings, but a loving Father and His living
son, Jesus, the Messiah.
We’ve been delivered from Satan’s chastisement of our
peace, and we won’t take it anymore. Jesus gave us a very special supernatural
peace. It is his peace! It is a living peace! He said: “Peace I leave with
you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I
unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John
14:27).
“And the peace of God,
which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). This is the kind of peace we can claim
as believers. It’s a special kind of peace that may seem inappropriate for the
situation, but it is vital to our spiritual, physical, and mental health.
We thank you, God, for exhibiting peace in our lives
today, in the wonderful name of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Love, Carolyn
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