“……..And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:4-7 NIV
When we relinquish our self, IN EVERY SITUATION, to God’s guidance and authority, the result WILL “transcend understanding”. Paul gave notice this gift of peace comes from our relationship with Him, meaning how we relate to God (see Part 2 thru 4) and defies our ability to intellectualize it. This gift of peace is supernatural because God is supernatural.
One is guarded for protection or to prevent them from leaving, but the Greek word for guard can also be translated as “capture”. Our heart (see In My Heart Means What?) is the essence of our feelings and emotions and the mind certainly references our thoughts. Our thoughts preclude actions we take with our words, work habits, spousal relationships, hobbies or ANYTHING else.
I believe Paul is saying when we allow ourselves to be brought to a place where this inner peace reigns in our life, our everyday circumstances are supernaturally altered. When what we feel and what we think submit to the authority of Christ our thoughts change, our words change and our life is changed.
Summarizing Part 1 to Part 5 of this series in the first person: When I habitually practice these faith action steps, as written, and allow a peace that is unachievable any other way to overtake me, God captures and protects my feelings and thoughts in order to make me more like Jesus. If this is true, then I will behave more like Jesus. Is this not the essence of Christianity? This concludes a 5 part series. Thanks for reading my blog. Steve
Copyright © 2020 by custom76, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except uses permitted by copyright law. I read and reply to all comments. Please remember my blog goal is to reach out in love, not condemnation. I will delete those type of comments. Please do not put your URL in the comment text or insert your business name, as the latter looks like spam. Thanks for joining our conversations! Steve
What Do We Really Want? 