November 03 2025

Monday November 03

No God, No Peace

Know God, Know Peace

Ephesians 2:16-18

And that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

If there's one thing everyone needs, is looking for, and desires, it is to have peace. To have peace within themselves, peace with God, and peace with those around them. But it often appears that many people today are bent on having war, at enmity with others, with hatred, malice, anger and violence in their hearts and lives. There is no peace in their lives, and they live to destroy any peace in the world around them. The Bible describes it this way in Isaiah 57:20-21, “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, When it cannot rest, Whose waters cast up mire and dirt. "There is no peace," Says my God, "for the wicked." 

Their hearts are against God, so their hearts are against everyone around them, and in a sense even themselves. But I believe that deep inside every individual there is a desire, there is a yearning for peace. The only way to make that peace is with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:1 tells us: “Having therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” That's what we're talking about in these verses before us today in Ephesians 2:16-18.

Remember in verses 11-15, Paul was dealing with the Gentiles basically and the reconciliation they needed and could now experience between themselves and the Jews now that they were in the same church, in the same body of Christ. Now we're in Christ (v. 13). Before we were aliens and strangers but now, we're a holy nation. Colossians 1:19-22 speaks of this very thing: “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, speaking of Jesus. By Him, Jesus, to reconcile all things to Himself. By Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven. having made peace through the blood of His cross, and you who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.” How wonderful, how powerful is that?

We're no longer strangers because we are now in the family of God along with the Jewish people. We had no hope. Now we've been called into one hope. We were without God, but now through Christ God is our Father.

Now in verses 16-18, Paul is talking about how both Jews and Gentiles need reconciliation as sinners with God. "That He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. He came and preached peace to you who are far off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father."

Paul’s letter to the Colossians in chapter 2:13-14 says it this way: “You being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to His cross." In other words, the law tells us we're sinners. The law tells us that we are condemned. God is a holy God and He must punish sin. God also at the same time is a God of love. He's a God who wants us to know peace and have peace.

That's why in Ephesians 2:17, Paul writes: “He came and He preached peace.” Did you notice that in verse 14 it says Jesus Christ is our peace. In verse 15, He made peace because of the blood of His cross between us and God. Then in verse 17, He preached peace. Remember the angels saying to the shepherds that day on the hillside, "Peace on earth and good will toward men”, is the message of Jesus Christ to all world of sinners." (Luke 2:13-14).  

If you want peace, the only peace you'll ever find and the only peace the world will ever find is in the person and ministry and work of Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit that can be in all of our hearts at the same time. “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father” (v. 18).

What a wonderful message for us today. We have a God that can take care of the enmity, bring reconciliation, and bring us back into a place where we can have fellowship one with another. John the Apostle wrote in 1 John 1:3-4, “That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.”

Today, I trust you're experiencing that peace and joy in yourself, and with God, and with those around you.

God bless!