Peace is our proper portion as children of God, peace both as to sin and as to circumstances. Now it is true that the latter we have not outwardly yet; but God is taking up all that concerns us and has taken upon Himself to make “all things work together for good.” And the knowledge of this gives peace in all circumstances, be they even those of trial, perplexity, and sorrow. Was it not so with Jesus? Who can be so tried as He? “Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls” (Heb. 12:3); yet He had always peace. And so might we: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isa. 26:3).

But then it is most important to see that the “counsel of peace” is entirely between God and Jesus. The moment we begin to rest our peace on anything in ourselves, we lose it. And this is why so many saints do not have settled peace. Nothing can be lasting that is not built on God alone. How can you have settled peace? Only by having it in God’s own way. By not resting it on anything within yourselves—even the Spirit’s work—but on what Christ has done entirely without you. Then you will know peace—conscious unworthiness, but yet peace. In Christ alone God finds that in which He can rest, and so it is with His saints. The more you see the extent and nature of the evil that is within, as well as that without and around, the more you will find that what Jesus is, and what Jesus did, is the only ground at all on which you can rest.