Marvel at this:

John 14:27  . . . My peace I give to you . . .

John 15:11 I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.

John 17:13  . . . that they may have my joy made full in themselves.

(Emphasis mine.)

How exciting! We all want Jesus’ peace and joy. Or do we? Could it be that we should be careful what we ask for?

The sad truth is that almost everyone recoils from Jesus’ peace and joy. We all want our own version of peace and joy and, for most of us, that is nothing like what Jesus offers. The majority want to be comfortable – and define peace and joy accordingly. We want an easy, pain-free, hassle-free life. That’s virtually the opposite of what Jesus gives. Here are examples of what he offers:

* “You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake” (Mark 13:13).

* “Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake” (Matthew 5:11).

* “It is enough for the disciple that he be like his teacher . . . If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household!” (Matthew 10:25).

* “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; and whoever will lose his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:35).

* “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

Wow! I’ve kept saying there’s a reason few find peace of biblical proportions. Now you know why I’ve kept skirting around it until now. No wonder nearly everyone acts like Jonah, slithering away in the opposite direction, as fast as their rattled senses will let them!

Delusional peace might be the most deadly, devastating con job on the planet, but it’s so seductively appealing, compared with the real thing.

Some might shame our Lord by peddling the Gospel with the slimy expertise of a snake oil salesman but, then again, there are many of whom Jesus declared he would be forced to say, “I never knew you.”

Our Lord is no slick-lipped, “Let me con you into this,” guy. He’s a “Follow me, I’ll blaze the trail,” “This works, but it costs,” “I never promised you a rose garden,” sort of person. You can trust him with your life. And to be one of his, that’s precisely what it takes.

Many of us think we want God, but we don’t. What we want is a Genie or Fairy God Mother. Actually, our preference is something more mindless: a gigantic vending machine would be ideal. How can we have peace with God if we have the audacity to come to the Lord of the Universe, expecting him to tell us, “Your wish is my command,” when that’s what he is expecting us to tell him?

To have what Jesus has, necessitates living as he lived. He showed us how, but it is wasted unless we follow the example he set. Here are some of the precedents he established for us to model our lives on – some practical examples of Jesus’ peace and joy in operation:

* “The Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life . . .” (Mark 10:45)

* “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58).

* “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38).

* “I don’t seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me.” (John 5:30).

* “ ‘My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death . . .’ He  . . . fell on his face, and prayed, saying, ‘ . . . nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire.’ . . . Being in agony he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground” (Matthew 26:38-39; Luke 22:44).

If you demand even more proof that this is the biblical route to Jesus’ joy, this should suffice:

Hebrews 12:1-3  . . . lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame . . . For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary . . . (Emphasis mine.)

Study this:

Hebrews 5:8 though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered.

Hebrews 2:17-3:2 he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest . . . For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted. Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him . . .

Hebrews 4:15 For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are . . .

Jesus learned obedience, not in a classroom, nor a playroom. He learned not by remote observation, nor by revelation magically downloading into his mind. He learned by real-life experiences shocking his senses and offending his sensibilities. There was nothing marginally artificial about our Lord, nor about what he had to endure. He was not divinely packed in the teeniest trace of bubble wrap, nor in the slightest sense doped on anything remotely akin to drugs to soften the blows. He is a real hero, having suffered real pain, real betrayal, real humiliation, real confusion; shedding real tears, real sweat, real blood.

He was proved worthy of his calling through being mercilessly attacked by the vilest, most powerful enemy, who had relished the opportunity for millennia. It was the spiritual equivalent of brutally raping the purest, most innocent of persons. There was not a single technique or dirty trick that malicious, calculating monster had learned over thousands of years of one-on-one combat with millions of humans that Satan did not use to the fullest on Jesus.

For Jesus, peace and joy revolve around continually coming to God, saying, “Aye, Aye, Sir!” In contrast, for too many of us, peace and joy revolve around saying, “I . . .I . . .”

Were I some charlatan, I’d keep quiet about this, but I refuse to mutilate God’s Word by tearing this promise out of context. Instead, I beg you to absorb the next words following Jesus’ promise of peace:

John 16:33 I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have oppression . . . (Emphasis mine, NIV)

Here’s a promise of Jesus to take to heart: in the world you have trouble, oppression, distress, suffering, affliction, frustration (just some of the different words used by various translations of John 16:33).

Here’s another promise that changes color when read in context: “Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow . . . Each day’s own evil is sufficient,” (Matthew 6:34, emphasis mine). The implied promise is that even for Jesus’ devout followers, each day will have its measure of evil. After leaving this world, that promise is nullified. Until then, being in a coma is about our only chance of having greater peace than Jesus had down here. If we want Jesus’ peace and joy, this is what we can expect it to look like at times:

Mark 3:5 he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their hearts

Mark 9:19  . . . Unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? . . .

Mark 14:33-34 He . . . began to be greatly troubled and distressed. He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. . . . ”

Luke 22:44 Being in agony he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground

John 11:33  . . . he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled

John 12:27 Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this time?’ But I came to this time for this cause.

John 13:21  . . . he was troubled in spirit, and testified, “Most certainly I tell you that one of you will betray me.”

Christ wasn’t even on the cross yet. Our exquisitely perfect Role Model was hardly doped out of his mind, forever floating blissfully on Cloud Nine, with not a care in the world.

I can well understand being slammed by tough times and craving some respite, but some people’s idea of heaven on earth is what I call hellish boredom and a wasted life. In fact, some people’s conception of heavenly peace is heaven’s definition of spiritual death. No pain, no glory.

Likewise, the apostle who wrote about peace so extreme that it defies comprehension, wrote such things as:

2 Corinthians 11:27-28 in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst . . . Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily, anxiety for all the assemblies.

2 Corinthians 2:4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears . . .

2 Corinthians 2:13 I had no relief for my spirit, because I didn’t find Titus, my brother . . .

Paul was not goofing off in a world of make-believe while those in the real world were hurtling to hell. He was in the world we know – a world so fallen, so chaotic and so needy that it is continually throwing up daunting challenges and dilemmas to anyone in the thick of rescuing its inhabitants. Scriptures such as those just listed, in no way detract from the power of the peace that Jesus offers. What undermines divine peace is not the raw truth, but any of us imagining God’s peace would transport us to a fantasy world – and then getting mad at ourselves or God when we find ourselves still having to grapple with reality.

Do you want Jesus’ peace and joy, or the eternal con job? Do you want what you’ll never end up regretting, or what you’ll regret forever?

You have heard of those who look for love in all the wrong places, and surely you recoil at the thought of the unspeakable pain and devastation it brings. Have you dared contemplate, however, the unfathomable horror of those who seek peace in the wrong places? Whether it be love, peace or happiness, those who look in the wrong places, never find it, but far, far more is at stake. The very attempt can ruin them.

The Word of God insists that our human nature (sometimes called the flesh or our old man) is utterly opposed to God. Everything it craves and everything that seems to our human nature as if it will bring peace and happiness and contentment, will ruin us. We are in desperate need of a radically different approach to the one that feels right to us, but the only way that will work seems far too high a price, when we find ourselves hopelessly addicted to things that will enslave and destroy us.

We Christians can be just as mesmerized as non-Christians by the ways of the world and the flesh. It is not just blatant non-Christians, nor just the Pharisees that Jesus exposed, who are lured to become lovers of money (Scriptures), lovers of self, lovers of popularity (Scriptures), lovers of ease (Scriptures), or some other deadly manifestation of the flesh. Like the Pharisees, our temptation is to take whatever aspect of the world or the flesh we have fallen head-over-heels in love with, and pretty them up, making them seem more respectable to our easily-fooled consciences. All we have to do is slap over our pet sins a handful of Christian stickers we have fashioned out of Scriptures recklessly ripped from their contexts.

We have so often heard talk about being our own worst enemy that it seems an empty cliché. It must be brutally true, nonetheless, if we are to take seriously what God says in his Word about our human nature. Over and over, in many different ways, the Bible says our flesh wages war against our souls.

Crucifixion was appallingly common in Jesus’ day. Today we can slide over him saying, “He who doesn’t take his cross and follow after me isn’t worthy of me. He who seeks his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it,” (Matthew 10:38-39 and then virtually repeating it later, in Matthew 16:24). When those words fired out of his mouth, however, every one of his hearers knew that the only people to take up their cross were heading to their own execution. And, of course, he set the ultimate example by doing precisely that, just as he prophesied. Crucifixion is about the ugliest, most terrifyingly horrific thing possible. Then he said such things as, “He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life,” (John 12:25, emphasis mine), and “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having your two hands to go into  . . . the unquenchable fire, where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched,” (Mark 9:43-44).

Jesus’ gravity on this is embraced strongly by the rest of the New Testament. I suggest reading these examples:

Romans 8:13 For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

2 Corinthians 4:10-11 always carrying in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh.

Galatians 5:17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.

Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.

Colossians 3:5 Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul

1 Peter 4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin

And very many similar Scriptures.

Our loving God uses grim terminology because the stakes could not be higher. We are in mortal combat. It’s a fight to the death. Either we kill our flesh/ego or it will kills us. Winner takes all. The results last for all eternity.

Here’s something similar from the very beginning of the Bible:

Genesis 4:7  . . . sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it. (NIV)

This was not a battle with the sort of sin we (and every good Pharisee) tend to emphasize. It was spiritual jealously, precipitated by the Lord favoring Abel’s offering over Cain’s. Sulking over someone else having more money or popularity, or a ‘better’ partner or job, or a more ‘successful’ ministry, or blessed with ‘greater’ spiritual gifts, or over being overlooked or misunderstood, or whatever, are each grave manifestations of the flesh that we barely even think of as evil. We are usually too infatuated with feeling sorry for ourselves, and resenting God and/or others, to see such attitudes as being as ungodly as an addiction to child porn. Nevertheless, envy, resentment, feeling sorry for ourselves, and so on, are just as much a manifestation of our sin nature as those that send chills down our spine, and they need to be crucified with equal urgency.

Most of us are rightly repulsed by many manifestations of the flesh. We see their evil and gallantly battle them. Disturbingly, however, some of the flesh’s equally deadly manifestations slip under our radar, and instead of treating them as the insidious enemies they are, we dote on them; literally giving them more love and attention than our dearest friend. After all, unlike anyone else, they are faithfully with us 24/7, offering unique comfort that no one else can quite match.

A person might fight lust, for example, but find exquisite solace in resentment, or flee greed, but fondly foster the warm glow accompanying feeling superior to certain people. It is almost inevitable that we will be blinded to the sinfulness of whatever manifestation of the flesh has enslaved us. For instance, an insatiable ‘need’ for more might have been with us for so long (and perhaps considered normal among people we associate with) that we cannot recognize it as greed. A gnawing, demanding, never-ending ‘need’ for more might seem to us as normal or excusable as an alcoholic’s ‘need’ for alcohol, or a pedophile’s ‘need’ for perversion seems to them.

Remember the fable of King Midas, who was ecstatic over the thought of everything he touches turning to gold; only to discover what a fool he had been. Our flesh gets so high on greed, lust, hate, or some other destructive craving, that it cannot see that what it hungers for like a ravenous beast is as idiotic and disastrous as Midas’s wish.

To live for pleasure is to fail to live. Popularity is plastic. Happiness is useless. Nice feelings are a waste. Sacrificial love is gold. If you cannot see this, keep seeking God for the scales to fall from your eyes. Your life depends on it.