Last week, having determined that God is all good and all powerful, yet evil exists, we sought to understand why our good and powerful God allows evil to exist in our world.

For the rest of this week, we are going to discuss how to cope with evil and suffering with two positive assertions.

Yesterday, we asserted that..
1. God has provided a future without evil for those who choose Him now.

For the rest of this week, we will focus on the second positive assertion:

2. God has provided peace and hope in the face of evil.

1.) If we are going to respond correctly to the evil in this world, we must first receive from Jesus His peace that He freely gives His followers.

Shortly before Jesus went to the cross, Jesus spoke to His disciples about two kinds of peace.

John 14:27 (ESV)
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

The only peace the world gives is escapism. The dictionary defines escapism as, “the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasies.”

Such a peace is simply a game that we play with our mind. It doesn’t last. It doesn’t sustain. It doesn’t nurture. It only delays the inevitable moment of exhaustion, fear, chaos, stress, confusion, and powerlessness, leaving us with a disorganized, discombobulated, disproportionate perspective of the evil around us.

I wrote this crazy, overly descriptive sentence to point out that the lack of peace floods our minds and hearts in a thousand different directions.

But, the peace Jesus gives comes to us because we are singularly focused on Him. Isaiah describes it perfectly: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” (Isaiah 26:3 (ESV)

When we keep our purpose, our meaning and our walk “stayed” on Jesus, as we live in trust of Him, the evils of this world cannot sink us. Like Peter, when he got out of the boat, we can walk on water as long as we keep our eyes on Jesus and refuse to focus on the wind and waves of evil all around us (Matt 14:30).

In order to cope with the evils of this world, we must choose who we are going to fear.

Matthew 10:28 (ESV)
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

This is the Godly fear that leads us to the cross.

Only when we have an eternal perspective on life can we begin to live in peace. There is no peace if we have not settled what happens to us after we die. When we understand that the worst evil can do to us is escort us into the presence of the Lord, we can live with peace in an evil world.