You are either a thermometer or you're a thermostat. Thermometer people tend to reflect the temperature of the people around them. "If you're hot, I'm hot. If you're cool, I'm cool. If you're nice, I'm nice. If you yell, I will yell." What most of us would like to be is a thermostat - someone who controls the temperature in our situation.
Your family needs for you to be a thermostat. If everyone's a thermometer, it is chaos. The people you work with and your friends need someone who is under control, who doesn't go off with the stress, and who's steady and peaceful. Thermostat people are rare and valuable.
Mark runs a rapidly growing, highly-pressurized company that services some of America's largest corporations. In the heat of battle one day, one of Mark's executives came in and said, "Man, how do you handle all this pressure?" Mark is like the eye of a hurricane - a center of calm in a swirling storm. Actually, Mark explained his thermostatic peace in one word: "Jesus."
Jesus is speaking in John 14:27 of the Word of God, and He is talking to His closest friends on the most stressful night of His life, just before His arrest and execution. It's on the eve of what is about to be the most stressful chapter in their lives. If "stressful" is a fair description of your life right now, these words from Jesus are for you, too. Here's what He says. "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."
There are many uncertainties in our world that could make any of our hearts "troubled" or "afraid" right now. You probably have a pretty impressive list of your own. In the midst of combat conditions, Jesus says, "I give you My peace like nothing or no one on earth can give you." A love-relationship with the Son of God is the secret to peace under pressure. It's a peace that you can experience over and over again - from hospital rooms, to gravesides, to doctor's offices, to airplanes in trouble, to out-of-control weeks. The anchor is that relationship with Jesus Christ.
When you know you belong to Him, you can be a thermostat instead of a thermometer because you know you have an identity and a security that is rooted in something you can't lose. It is the freedom of knowing that whatever is at stake in this situation isn't all there is; you're anchored to Jesus Christ, His unloseable love, and His unstoppable plans.
It's the relationship you were made for, but you've been missing because your sin has cut you off from your Creator. It's the relationship that Jesus died to give you by paying for your sin on His cross. If you're ready to let Jesus bring peace to that storm inside you, tell Him you are trusting Him to be your Savior from your sin.
Jesus makes a thermometer person into a thermostat who has His inner power to set a whole new temperature, and He's waiting for your invitation.