Who's Your Prince?

The Christmas hymn, "Silent Night" is considered the worldwide signature song of celebrating Christmas. Every verse ends with these words: "Sleep in heavenly peace." Of course this song was directed to the baby Jesus, but for this Chrismas week I want us to explore what "heavenly peace" is for us. Not just to sleep in peace, but to live with peace in our heart. Many people sense that inner peace has been elusive their whole life. Lasting personal peace is what all of us need to fill the vacuum wthin us. The Bible describes the condition of many a human heart this way: "Like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud" (Isaiah 57:20).

Then God uses these two words to describe any heart without God in it - "No peace." The mountains of :

• The guilt of our mistakes
• The people we've hurt and the things that have hurt us
• Our fears about the future
• Our chronic feeling of loneliness, of lostness

All these mountains make it hard to live in peace - to sleep in peace. "Silent Night" is right when it refers to peace as being "heavenly peace." It's only heaven, it's only God that can finally bring peace to the lifelong storms in our hearts. One of the classic scriptures of Christmas suggests why we don't have God's peace and how we can. In Isaiah 9:6, our word for today from the Word of God, the Bible says:

"Unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

There it is. Jesus came to be our Prince of Peace, but we can't have His peace until He's our Prince. Jesus is supposed to be governing our lives. It's nice to have Jesus as a belief, a religion, or a security blanket. But He's the King of kings and Lord of lords. We've chosen to drive our own life where we want it to go, effectively ignoring the God who made us. Only when Jesus Christ sits on the main throne of authority in our lives is He our Prince. Oh, we may sense He is in our churches, but is He in charge of our lives? We may call out to Him in need, but we don't want Him or anyone else controlling our lives. If He is only in our minds; we've missed Him; to be our Prince He must have first place in our hearts.

Peace comes from the Prince of Peace in close relationship with His people. Whenever we are ready to move from a religion to a relationship with Jesus, we are ready to trade the hell we deserve with heaven we could never deserve. We can tell Jesus, "Lord, I'm Yours." Then,belonging to Jesus, Prince of Peace will give us heavenly sleep.

Psalm 4:8, "I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety." Prayer and communing with God is important for me to sleep peacefully. I ask God to reveal what needs changing in me and I repent for whatever comes to mind. I pray for others daily. In fact when I awaken in the night I start going down the list of people in my life alphabetically (I switch it around so I don't always start with the A's).

First, He gives His beloved the sleep of a quiet conscience. Do you recall the passage where we were told that Herod intended to bring out Peter on the morrow, but behold as Peter was sleeping between two guards the angel delivered him? Think of it. Peter was able to sleep so soundly when the next day he was to be slain. He was not disturbed. As Peter lay between the two guards, he slept because he had a conscience at peace with God. He was in the will of God. He had nothing to fear. Peter knew to be slain meant to be present with the Lord.

Christmas: Tribute to the Prince of Peace.........Is He your Prince?