Thursday, March 31, 2016
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I was on a flight several years ago and my neighbor was one of the flight attendants. For whatever reason we ended up talking about plane crashes. Imagine that! One that came to mind in particular was a tragic crash off the coast of Nova Scotia back in 1998.
Since the passengers and the crew knew about the plane's critical situation for a while, we talked about how it must have felt to be anticipating that crash for half an hour. And I couldn't help but reflect on two occasions when the plane I was in had pretty close calls: one where we had serious hydraulic problems, and another where my plane had blown a tire on takeoff. On those occasions we knew about the problem for a while, and we had some time to think about the possibilities.
On one of those flights, I was seated next to a sweet little grandmother who was very scared. Fortunately I was able to be some comfort to her. In fact, I even got her to laugh a little. After we landed with a wounded plane but safe passengers, she said, "How could you stay so calm during a time like this?" I said, "I guess it's because my peace isn't from what's going on around me. It's from inside where nothing can touch it." Or, as I told my flight attendant neighbor, "The peace passed the test."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Crashproof Peace."
I was doubly grateful in those airline emergencies because, well, my plane didn't crash and neither did my peace. Living in the kind of turbulent, unpredictable, even painful world you and I do, our hearts need a source of peace that's unshakable, no matter what. When that grandmother asked me how I could have peace when we could have been facing a crash, I said, "It's because my peace isn't anchored to what's happening around me. It's anchored to my love-relationship with Jesus Christ, which nothing can touch!"
Now that's a peace you may need right now. Our word for today from the Word of God talks about how to have that kind of stability when everything else in our life is up for grabs. It's in Hebrews 6:19. It begins by saying, "We have this hope..." Which hope? Well, the verses around it are talking about the hope we have because Jesus opened a way for us to go right to the heart of God. It says, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." Man, I love that!
"As an anchor for the soul." Sounds pretty good doesn't it? See, while the storm is blowing the ship of our life back and forth, an anchor is there that never moves, that keeps us from being blown away. It may be that there's been plenty of turbulence lately for you, and maybe there's heavy weather coming. Maybe you've already seen some things or even some people that you were counting on blown away. The word "peace" so describes what your heart needs right now – something unloseable.
That's what Jesus promised those who belong to Him. He said, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you" (John 14:27). It was that peace that never failed me when I was anticipating a possible plane crash, when my precious wife almost died from hepatitis, when we lost a baby, when my Dad died. It was this peace of Jesus I just saw in my dear friends whose teenage son was killed recently in a traffic accident. They told me of the deepest pain of their lives, and the most amazing sense of well-being that they had ever experienced.
Only Jesus could do that, and He wants to do it for you. He gave His life to give you the peace that you need most of all – peace with God. We have this wall between us and our Creator, made from all the sins of our life. But Jesus died to pay the death penalty for our sins so the wall could come down. So you and I could finally trade our hell for His heaven, and our restlessness and our pain for His peace.
Do you want that? Do you want to know you belong to Him? Tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." Go to our website and let me walk you through there how to be sure you belong to Him – AnewStory.com.
When you open up to the peace of Jesus Christ, you have found the anchor for your soul, and no storm, no crash can touch it.