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God told Moses to tell the priests how to bless God’s people in Numbers 6:23-27. The blessing we know, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; The Lord lift His countenance upon you, and give you peace.” The Jewish commentary says that the priests performed this blessing daily in the temple. The blessing was the priest performing it (v. 23), but it was God who was doing the blessing (v. 27). God delights to provide peace, and He delights to surround us with peace, even when all the world is going mad. That was an Old Testament blessing. We look to the New Testament and ask, “is the promise for the surrounding blessing of peace is still present for His people?” The answer is an emphatic, “YES!” Consider:
God is described as the “God of peace” no less than six times in the New Testament (1 Cor. 14:33; Phil. 4:6-7; Rom. 15:33, 16:20; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 13:20).
Jesus is described as the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). A reality of Isaiah that we didn’t fully understand until the appearance of the Messiah Jesus. Ephesians 2:14 tells us that “He Himself is our peace.”
His word is called, “the Gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15). When we study God’s word, we put ourselves in direct contact with the life-giving message that is able to see us through the storms of life.
The Kingdom of God is, “righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). In fact, Christians should desire to keep “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1-3).
Everything about God longs for the absence of hostility and the presence of friendly, harmonious relationships. In a book to Christians being hostile and abrasive to each other, Paul reiterates the fact that, “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace as in all the churches of the saints” (1 Cor. 14:33). When we use the wisdom from above, we will bear the fruit of righteousness which is “sown in peace, by those who make peace” (Jas. 3:18). We do that because we’re following the God of Peace!
Andy Baker
Graeber Road church of Christ
Rosenberg, TX