"My own peace"

“I leave behind with you — peace; I give you my own peace and my gift is nothing like the peace of this world. You must not be distressed and you must not be daunted.” John 14:27

Just as He does with “joy” in the next chapter, Jesus here tells us that He’s leaving us with peace, and it’s not some vague sort of peace, is it? “I give you my own peace,” He says – the very same peace with which we see Him operating throughout His life. In the midst of the crushing crowds: peace. In the midst of fierce opposition: peace. In a storm on the water: peace. On the night before a chosen death: peace.

It’s in the context of His offering peace that’s actually His peace that we should read the command on which He then lands: “You must not be distressed and you must not be daunted.” Why? Because whenever we’re “distressed and daunted,” we show we’re not trusting in His personal peace and we make His peace look insufficient for life’s trials. But Jesus’ peace is utterly sufficient for life’s trials. After all, it carried Him through His own! But the only way to prove it is actually to trust Him; to “throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon him, for you are his personal concern.” (1 Peter 5)