"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful" (John 14:27).

To a Christian it is important that he has Christ's peace in his heart. Christ reconciled us to God when He atoned for our sins. The peace of forgiveness is based on Christ's once?and?for?all sacrifice in our behalf. We have this peace through faith. It is, however, very easy to lose this peace. The greatest and subtlest danger is spiritual indifference. If a person falls into some grave sin, his conscience accuses him and he knows that he has lost his peace. He knows he must rise again through repentance and faith. But when a person becomes spiritually indifferent, his conscience does not react. It hears God's Word but does not apply it to itself and therefore does not accuse. When a spiritually indifferent person of this type listens to a sermon, he gets nothing from it because he believes that he is without fault. Indifference leads to other sins. He begins to make distinctions among preachers. He is not concerned about the substance of the preaching - only about outward matters. The spiritually indifferent falsely believes that a hardened heart is a heart at peace.

Spiritual indifference also has other devastating results. It takes away the decisiveness of confession. A spiritually indifferent person believes that he must be conciliatory in all things and must not take a strict, unconditional stand in matters pertaining to the Word of God. In this way he believes he is promoting the cause of the Gospel. But God's Word is strict and unconditional. God's Word is not many different contradictory messages; it is unchangeable, eternal, always the same.

Christ has given us peace so that we will trust in His lordship, His grace and His guidance. "Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful" (John 14:27). Christ has not given us His peace so that we would use it as an excuse and begin trying to please people, be afraid to confess His name, modify God's Word or do some other terrible thing.

Christ has given us His peace so that we would with courage and joy fight among the ranks of His soldiers. The spiritually indifferent believe that Christ brought peace to earth. But to them Christ says: "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34). If we wish to be Christians we must bear our cross. If we refuse to bear the cross, we cannot have a good conscience but will live with hardened hearts in an imagined state of peace.

Let us therefore beware of spiritual indifference! Let us fight with courage and joy in Christ's army.