Finding Lasting Inner Peace: How Understanding the Gospel Ends Fear and Anxiety

Summary

This devotional explores the widespread struggle with anxiety and the deeper spiritual unrest behind it. After years of fear about death and judgment, the author found instant, lasting inner peace by truly understanding the gospel. Trusting not in personal effort but solely in Jesus Christ’s finished work brought assurance, clarity, and freedom from fear. Lasting inner peace begins with relying fully on God’s grace through faith in Christ.

The Modern Crisis of Anxiety and Inner Turmoil

A survey published in October 2022 found that “a majority of adults [in the USA] are disheartened by government and political divisiveness, daunted by historic inflation levels, and dismayed by widespread violence.”¹ 

Inner peace is elusive. The lack of it is most severe among those 18–34 years old—62 percent of women and 51 percent of men are completely overwhelmed by stress most days.² 

Why Common Solutions Fall Short

Multitudes of advertisers offer solutions to the anxiety epidemic. One suggestion is to spend time in nature, meditate, be grateful, take responsibility for your actions, refuse to let past mistakes define you, love yourself, practice acceptance and contentment, and declutter.³ There is a deeper spiritual unrest that is often unrecognized.

A Deeper Fear Beneath the Stress

In my teen years, I was most anxious about potential nuclear warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union. But greater still was my anxiety over what lies on the other side of death.

I dreaded God’s after-death review of my life. My inner peace emerged like a mushroom unexpectedly one fall evening in 1968 and never left. Here is how it happened.

A Life-Changing Dorm Room Conversation

Several guys in an interdenominational Christian group knocked on my college dorm room door. After introducing themselves, they asked me to define what a real Christian is.

Then they asked me to explain how I would explain becoming a Christian to someone who knew nothing about Christianity.

After that, they shared a message I had heard hundreds of times in my church. That often-repeated message had not brought me the inner peace I desired. I humored them by allowing them to explain it one more time. As it turned out, I didn't really understand the gospel.

Understanding the Gospel for the First Time

Then they shared two verses unfamiliar to me. “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12 NIV). 

Those two verses were push-button instant inner peace magic words. Here is why.

From Self-Reliance to Grace

Before that evening, I was trusting my eternal destiny to Jesus’ death in my place to pay the penalty of my sins. I also trusted in my not-always-best effort to live like a Christian.

The focus on my works is what train wrecked my inner peace. I knew my behavior had room for improvement.

After hearing those two verses, I understood the gospel for the first time. Jesus did everything necessary to make me right with God.

God did not expect me to add anything to what Jesus had done for me. Jesus fully paid the penalty for my sins. God declares me “not guilty” by grace through my trust in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection in my place.

Finding Lasting Inner Peace in Jesus

When I understood that, a light in my life turned on, and the darkness of confusion and doubt disappeared. Instantly, inner peace displaced the fear and doubt in my heart.

Finding lasting inner peace begins when we trust in and apply God’s remedy for sin to our lives. A prayer for inner peace involves inviting Jesus Christ to come into our lives as our leader and forgiver and trusting that what He did for us on the cross is completely adequate to make us right with God.

1.     Stress in America 2022: Concerned for the future, beset by inflation (apa.org)

2.     Ibid.

3.     How to Find Your Inner Peace - Kentucky Counseling Center

See additional free spiritual growth resources for Christians.  #freediscipleshipresources #freeevangelismresources #freechristianleadershipresources

God has empowered me to write His Power for Your Weakness—260 Steps Toward Spiritual Strength. It’s a free, evangelistic, devotional, and discipleship e-book. Pastors have used it in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia to lead 7,541 people to Christ and teach the basics of Christianity to 17,361 people. I invite you to explore and use it in your setting. 

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