Ian Barclay's Thought For The Day

A CHRISTIAN LOOKS AT MATTHEW’S GOSPEL
Serenity in the storm
Reading: Matthew 8:23-27 Click to view passage

We will spend another day on these verses because they present us with a marvellous illustration of what the bible means by “peace.” “A furious storm came up on the lake…..but Jesus was sleeping.” (v24). I wonder, when the phone rings endlessly and the emails keep coming in, if you sigh and say, “Oh for a little peace.” This story emphasises that peace is not the absence of activity, or the absence of hostility or even the absence of reality. Jesus had peace in the midst of the storm and that is where we have to find it too.

Matthew Henry said, “When Christ died he left a will, in it he bequeathed his soul to his Father, his body to Joseph of Arimathea, his clothes fell to the soldiers, his mother he gave to John, but to his disciples, who had left all to follow him, he left not silver or gold but something that was infinitely better – his peace.”

Meditation: Peace is not the absence of activity, hostility or reality.

Prayer pointer: To be an instrument of Jesus Christ’s peace.