From the Peace of Christmas to Success in Life

There are two kinds of peace and one will lead to other. It is the foundation of a meaningful and satisfying life.

The Relational Peace of Christmas

Christmas brings us a relational kind of peace. The peace that reconciles men back to God through the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When we receive Jesus into our hearts, we enjoy the peace with God, and we also have His peace within us.

• Luk 2:11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  
• Luk 2:14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
• Rom 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Personal Peace Within Us from Jesus

• John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

His peace given to us is the one that surpasses our understanding, that enables us to remain calm, without anxieties, in the to face of all challenges. It is very unlike the peace of the world, which is very fragile and depends on all things running smoothly. When there is trouble or a problem, we tend to lose our peace. We need to guard and let this peace of Jesus rules in our heart so that we can discern and make the right judgments and follow up with the right action.

The Peace Needed for Making Wise Decisions
This relates well to the calmness that Sun Zi tells us in his Art of War book. While we should consider the emotions of people affected in any project, we should never be emotional in our decision-making. We must be calm and objective so that we can think and decide well. Never make any decision when we are not at peace. Sun Zi reminds us that the enemy trick, the devil, is to get us to be emotional, either angry and therefore make impulsive decisions to cause our failures or fear that we fail to do anything to move us out of our trap. He will also exploit our desires to get us to sin willingly.

This is the great and good news of Christmas.
The relational Peace from Jesus enables His peace to be in us, to be our peace and our ruler, that we may live well in peace, with good judgment to make all the right decisions and achieve good success for our lives and loved ones and extend those in need.

Lim Liat (c) 16 Dec 2017