Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley.
Sometimes emotions turn away, causing deep distress inside. Today's program helps you focus on key truths that are essential for living at peace with ourselves. Today's program is about peace with others, which is the capacity to have a harmonious relationship with other people, and then peace within ourselves, with ourselves, which is a quietness and a serenity of our soul that is the result of learning to accept ourselves the way we are, realizing that God has something very special for each and every one of us. God desires that we have peace with ourselves. And that is the part of peace that oftentimes eludes people. And that's the section of peace that I want us to deal with in this message. And I want you to turn, if you will, to the 34th Psalm.
And the title of this message is simply that. And that is peace with ourselves. I just want to read one single verse out of this passage. And it is a twofold admonition to us in Psalm 34 and verse 14.
And here's what the Psalmist says. Depart from evil and do good. And then listen. Seek peace and pursue it. That is, go after it. That is, find it.
He says pursue it. That is, don't give up until you discover it. It is the will of God that we have peace within ourselves, with others, and with Himself. So what I want us to do in this message is this. I want us to look at those things that are absolutely essential for us to believe and to experience in order to have peace with ourselves. Because if you don't have peace with yourself, you're not going to enjoy peace with God, peace with others, because we have to live with ourselves.
So let's think about what these necessities are. And I want to encourage you to jot them down. Be honest enough to look at each one of them and say, God, is this true in my life? Is there some area of my life here that I need to look at that something that's causing me to miss out on the best of life because I don't have any peace with myself? I don't have this tranquility, this serenity of heart. I don't feel harmonious on the inside, but rather I feel strife and separation and being fragmented on the inside. And as I look at my life and I look around me, somehow on the inside, things just don't connect right. It's just not right. I'm just unhappy, God. Well, if you're willing to be honest and look at yourself, something can happen to you during this message. And let me just say this.
It's not any one of these things that I'm going to talk about. It's all of them. And when you hear them, you'll realize, you know, yeah, that's true. That's true.
That's true. They're all true. And so it's not a matter of saying, well, I get if I get this fixed up, I'll be OK. All of them are true. And so I want to encourage you to get out a pencil and piece of paper.
Give you time for a second or so to do that and begin. And the first three of these would be the ones that would be the most evident. But as we move along, we'll see some that are not so evident.
And remember what we're talking about. We're talking about those essentials in your belief system, in your actions that will make it possible for you to live at peace with yourself. A sense of tranquility, a sense of calmness, a sense of quietness, a sense of harmonious relationship with yourself. That will make the difference in whether how much you enjoy God, how much you enjoy others.
And it begins with this very first requirement, and that is that you and I receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal savior. Now, you say, well, what does that have to do with my inner peace? Here's what it has to do with it. This settles once and for all where you're going to spend eternity.
Let's face it. You cannot have peace with yourself when you do not know where you're going to spend eternity or you believe and think the possibility is that you could be separated from God forever and ever and ever. And as he says, living in outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, there is no way you can possibly live with peace knowing that is a possibility. So step number one, you have to settle this issue with your relationship to God, which is to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior. He says he gives us the gift of eternal life to those who believe. Now, second thing that is very essential is this, and that is that you believe and accept the truth that God is absolutely sovereign.
Now, why is that essential? Because if we accept the truth that God is absolutely sovereign, that protects us from the continuing fear of safety. Suppose this happens in my life.
Suppose that happens. He says in that hundred and third song, the 19th verse, that he has established his throne in the heavens and his sovereignty rules over all. That is, God is in absolute control of all things. If I can accept the fact that he is in absolute control of my life and every aspect of it, I don't have to be fearful. Now, listen, you cannot live with fear in your heart and peace in your heart at the same time.
You have to make a choice, and it is a choice we make. So if we're going to have peace in our heart, we must settle the issue, not only, listen, where are we going to spend eternity, but we must settle the issue of who is in control, that we don't have any reason to live walking around in fear. That's the third essential, and that's this. This principle is so clearly written throughout God's Word. That is, that God is going to meet every need that you have. He says, My God shall supply all of our needs according to his riches in glory, that those of us who walk uprightly shall not want any good thing, not a single thing.
He's going to provide every single need. Our Heavenly Father does not want you waking up in the morning or any day or going to bed at night or rolling and tossing and tumbling all night long, worried and concerned about what may happen or that your needs are not going to be met, whether it is a material need, a physical need, whether it is a spiritual need or some emotional need. He is a God who answers prayer. And you see, the reason I know that you can't have peace and have those kind of fears is this, because to doubt God's Word is to doubt the living God. And if you're in doubt of God about one thing, more than likely, you're going to be in doubt with Him about some other things. You can't live with peace in your heart, peace with yourself, have serenity and quietness of soul, tranquility of heart. And at the same time be doubting that God is going to do what He promised.
Does He not say, flowers of the field, they don't fret and worry, birds of the air, they don't fret and worry. Your Heavenly Father knows all of their needs. And if He provides for them, will He not provide for you?
And yet there are many people who worry and fret over not having this and suppose this happens and suppose I don't have that. Our Heavenly Father's promised to supply every single need of His children, in His time, in His way. He knows what our needs are. But there's a fourth thing. When we think in terms of living with peace within ourselves.
And the fourth one is this. And that is to maintain a clear conscience. Maintain a clear conscience. In the twenty-fourth chapter of Acts, listen to what the apostle Paul said. Twenty-fourth chapter and the sixteenth verse, he makes it very clear about his own interest and his own concern in this area.
Here's what he says. He says, Having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall be certainly a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. Then verse, listen, he says in verse sixteen, In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience, both before God and before men.
Now let's think of it this. Why is a blameless, why is a clean conscience so important and so essential to peace? Because God placed the conscience within us as a warning signal. That is, when we are heading in the wrong direction in our life to do something wrong or to say something wrong, oftentimes we know in our heart.
All of a sudden we get this warning. Or, having already done it, having already said it, we say our conscience bothers us. Now, what is it that's bothering us?
What's bothering us is guilt. So to keep a clear conscience means that protects us from the very weighty harassment and, listen, the continuous shoutings of our conscience. God desires that you and I have peace. He says, Seek it.
He says, Pursue it. He says, My peace I've given to you, not as the world gives give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled.
He says, Don't be afraid. In other words, it's peace. God wants us to be able to live with it because, listen, the more peaceful you are, the more tranquil your heart, the more settled your spirit, the more effective you're going to be in your witness for Him. And not only that, the more you're going to enjoy life, the better you're going to do at every single thing you do in your life, your vocation, no matter what it is. You're going to do it better and be better at it if you're living with peace in your heart because, you see, the lack of it fragments your thinking, divides your thinking. You cannot live with a guilty conscience and have clear thinking in your mind and heart.
It just doesn't happen. Another very important element at this point is this. We must be able to accept ourselves the way God made us. Now, what does that do?
Now, watch this. To accept yourself the way God made you helps you, listen, protects you from trying to change those things over which you have absolutely no control. There are many things in life over which you and I have no control. So if I'm going to have peace in my heart, I must be willing to accept myself. When a person says, I'm not worthy, I'm not fit, I don't like me, you know what happens? Your attitudes and your actions become such other people don't like you. It's something you do to yourself. You don't like yourself. You say, well, I would like to accept myself, but I feel so rejected.
You don't like yourself. You can mark this down. If you get up every morning, you say, I look terrible.
I just look terrible. Here's what will happen. You can mark this down. This is the law. Your actions will follow your imagination every time.
Every time, not most time, every time. The way you imagine yourself to be, you will become sin related. And so God has given you an imagination. He's given you reality. He said, for example, that he loves you so much that it's his divine will to conform you and me into the likeness of his son. What greater compliment could he give us? The likeness of his son doesn't mean we're going to look like him, but it means that our character, he wants to build in us such character. What's the most important thing about you anyway? Not your flesh, but your character, your heart, your soul, your innermost being. That's who you really are. And God desires the best for you. He doesn't want you rejecting yourself and saying, I'm not worth anything. Who wants to be my friend?
Why would anybody want to be my friend? I'm a nobody and I don't have this and I'm this and I'm that. You know what? That's all erroneous thinking. You're somebody special in God's eyes, but you know what? As long as these are the attitudes you have, you cannot have peace. And so I'm simply saying to you, if you're going to have peace, you've got to start with you. You've got to start with your attitude toward yourself.
Not that you're rejected, but that you're greatly loved by Almighty God. Then another very important essential is this. Listen, you must have a sense of purpose in life. A sense of purpose in life protects you from floundering and wandering and wasting your life. God made you for a purpose. He will show you that purpose.
He will give you that purpose until you find it, until you discover, until you believe that you are walking where God wants you to walk, doing what he wants you to do. You're not going to have any peace. You can have all the money, all of this and all that. It begins with Jesus Christ.
And then we have to look on the inside. If you can't live with yourself, if you can't accept yourself, where's the peace? You need a purpose in life. And as parents, you need to instruct your children so early they can't even remember when you start saying, God has a will for your life. God has a purpose for your life. God has a plan for your life. God has something for you to do.
Drilling it into their minds and hearts so they don't waste time and waste their life. That is a purpose in life. If you're going to experience peace, you've got to have a purpose. You say, well, I'm just the homemaker.
Don't say just. If God's made you a wonderful wife, taking care of your family, you're not just anything. That is your purpose for now.
God may change what you do in your life, but listen, he has a purpose for it. And he will give you direction at every season and every stage of your life what you should do. But it begins with knowing what that purpose is.
So let's think about this whole idea. Likewise, that we might not only must have a purpose, but we listen. You must have a sense of competency, which means you must have a sense of the fact that you're able. You're capable. You're qualified. You can do it. A sense of competence.
And what does that do? That protects us from the cause of failure, which oftentimes is an overwhelming sense of inadequacy. I can't. God made every single one of us competent, capable, able, ready to do whatever he wants us to do. Now, we may have to get an education to do it.
We may have to hone up on our skills. But listen, God would never call you to do anything or require you to become something. He does not help you and aid you. So if you have this feeling of being very incompetent, well, you know, I couldn't do that. I never have done that. Well, you know, all of us have done things.
We never had done before. You can't wait till you've got it all together because about time you get it all together, something's going to fall apart. Listen, you trust in the living God. Your competency is in him and you're not going to ever have any peace in your heart. If you go to work every day thinking, I'm so inadequate, it's probably not going to work.
I'm going to fail at this. Listen, you cannot feel like you're a failure and have peace. You can't feel like I can't do this and I can't do that. I can't do the things that are required of me and have any peace in your heart. You listen, you will condemn yourself.
You will judge yourself. You criticize yourself. You put yourself in despair. That's not the will of God. Seek peace.
Pursue it. He says, my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled. God wants you to walk in peace, but you've got to have a sense of purpose. Clear conscience. Listen, knowing that you're accepted by him.
You know, what difference does it make what the world thinks as long as God loves you and he has accepted you. And so we have to have a sense of competence. But not only that, something else very, very important when I think about all the essentials. And that is we must have a sense of belonging. Very important. We have a sense of belonging.
Now, what does that do? A sense of belonging protects us, listen, from feelings of rejection. You know why?
Because listen, every single person needs a sense of worth, a sense of belonging and a sense of competency. You know what a tripod is? It has three legs. Take any one of them out and it goes down. It doesn't stand on two legs.
It stands on three. Without a sense of worth, I'm somebody, I'm somebody important. God has accepted me. A sense of competency, I can do it.
With the help of God, I can do it. A sense of belonging, I belong to Him, He belongs to me. And so a sense of belonging is very important because it protects us. It protects us in lots of ways. God wants you, He wants you to feel you belong to Him because you do.
And then I would just mention one other and there are lots of things we could say about that. And that is you must be Christ-centered and not self-centered. Christ-centered and not self-centered. Christ at the heart of your life. Jesus says, I am your life.
He said, I am your life. Living on the inside of every single one of us is a person of Jesus Christ. Now, it's one thing to have peace with God that is to be saved. Not the peace of God, peace with God. Because the peace of God is not going to be in your heart as long as all these other things are messed up. Peace with God means the battle is over, you trust that Him is your Savior and you have the gift of eternal life. Harmonious relationships with other people are going to be greatly affected by your capacity to live in peace with yourselves. And so my prayer for you is simply this, that you would be willing to stop and ask yourself the question, do I really have peace on the inside? It's my prayer that you would be willing to look at yourself and make whatever decision you know is wise to deal with that area of those areas of your life.
Now, if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, that's number one. And I want to encourage you to ask Him to forgive you of your sins and tell Him that you've messed it up. You tried to do it.
It hasn't worked. And you want to start with step number one in discovering your peace with Him. And then be willing to look at yourself and say, God, I want to deal with this. Lord, I want to deal with that. Lord, I'm going to deal with this.
And you know what? He'll show you exactly what to do and how to handle it. And then He'll tell you what's going to happen. Then you're going to wake up and look in the mirror and you're going to think, hmm, something's different. Same old beard or same old face, but something's different. You know what's different? When the inside changes, you cannot keep it hidden. You can't keep it hidden.
Why? Because that's the real you coming out and you've discovered peace and you can't hide it. Thank you for listening to Peace with Ourselves. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
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