How do you keep peace in the family during the holidays? Usually we “keep the peace” by simply appeasing those around the holiday table, but is this really peace? It’s more like a short-lived truce because it fails to confront the real problem and spiritually speaking, the real underlying problem is a lack of peace with God.

God’s idea of peace speaks of His plan to reconcile mankind to Himself. When the angels sang announcing the birth of the Son of God to the shepherds,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” in the second chapter of Luke, God had in mind the peace that only He can provide in the Gift of His Son.

Luke 2:14

The greatest peace we can encounter is found in believing faith in Christ. We read the first of these verses yesterday, but consider Paul’s words in Romans 5:1-5 –

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

When we have peace with God, we’re then better able to face the problems at hand with a different attitude thanks to God’s love poured into our hearts.