December 10, 2025

His law is love and his gospel is peace (O Holy Night).

Who are you? Are you the person that others want you to be? Are you the person that you wish you were? Are you the person that your parents pretended you were, or didn’t want? Are you the person that you present to others at church, at home, or on-line? It is assumed that people construct a personal resume around the job they are pursuing. But do you create a resume in your mind of the impression that you want to make on others? If so, what happens if the personal resume you create does not match reality? What happens when you cannot keep up the claims that you have made? When you look at yourself in the mirror, who is it that looks back? Those are not easy questions to answer, are they?

As a kid, I spent hundreds of hours playing basketball in my driveway. Every night under the light from my house I imagined hitting the winning shot of the game, igniting the sell-out crowd to a frenzy. My mental resume (dream) however faced a reality check when I didn’t make my junior high team. Now what? What happens when experience exposes a gap between your perception of yourself and others? Can you adjust? Can you accept? Can you learn? Can you be at peace?

Isaiah promised that the Christ child would be the “Prince of Peace” and “of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.” (Isaiah 9:6-7) The army of angels who surrounded the shepherds out in the field outside of Bethlehem, announced “…on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.”

The peace of Christ is more than a cessation of war. The peace of Christ speaks of harmony, wholeness, completeness, being at rest and being content. How can people be at peace with others unless they are first at peace within themselves? And, (here is the point I am trying to make) how can a person be truly at peace internally, unless they are at peace with God? If I am hostile, unsettled, discontent with God, then there is no resting of my soul, no calibration of myself and therefore, no framework by which I can be really at home with others.

Being at peace positionally before God and experiencing that peace with God are necessary to being personally whole. So, how do I experience the peace of God? We do that by believing and embracing the grace of God. God’s grace to us through Christ is an amazing 2-part gift. The death of Christ pays for my deficit, my debt, my sin. The life of Christ credits me with completeness, wholeness, and righteousness. All that I am not on my own, I am credited with through Christ. What I am positionally in Christ (already) is what I will experience with Christ in glory, and so will every brother and sister in Christ.

So, who am I? I am in Christ. I am His. I am His forever. I am His child, not because of my merit, but because of His grace. Therefore, the gaps in your resume of unfulfilled desires or expectations are already filled by Christ. Enjoy that. He is your peace.

Grace and peace,

Bob

Sunday’s text: Luke 2:8-20