Prayer is another thing we must do to keep our peace.  God knows what we need before we ask Him, but His plan is for us to ask.  Prayer is not just always asking God for something, but it’s a means of fellowship with God.  It’s a communion between God and us that brings love, joy, peace, comfort and all that we need.  It’s a heart to heart talk to God.  In prayer we tell our Lord and Saviour of our great love for Him.  In prayer we never cease to praise Him for dying on the cross and taking our punishment for our sins.  In prayer we, so to speak, just lift our hearts and minds up into that heavenly realm and we touch heaven.  A thrill of heavenly love flows from God down into the very depths of our inner being.  Power, strength and grace is given, and with a deep inner joy we go forth and face the world.  Others might wonder how we can have the courage to face the hard things, but it’s because of grace gained through prayer.  Prayer should never be neglected or we will feel our peace slipping away.

Prayer can be a groan, a sigh, a dropping of a tear, a smile, an inner praise going up to God, laughter in the spirit, or an inward or audible “praise the Lord!” Prayer is the sincere desire of the heart or an attitude of the heart.  Surely we can “pray without ceasing,” as we keep a heart full of love for our Lord and a feeling of utter dependence upon Him.  In living in this way, our peace will be abounding.

Another foe we must watch is self.  Often it has been said that we must die out to self, but it goes deeper than just saying it.  Self longs to live, but it must be crucified.  We must remember that “ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price:  therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”  I Cor. 6:19,20.  If we belong to God then we do not belong to ourselves.  We must be aware of the fact that self will make many concessions to live.  Self sometimes will allow its owner to do many sacrificial deeds if it can live.  It will even bear hard things, but it must go.  Self must be crucified.  We must die to good deeds, and to bad deeds, successes, failures, exaltations, humiliation, friends and foes.  Oh, it must not be us but Jesus that will be lifted up in our lives!  The Apostle Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ:  nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:  and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”  Gal. 2:20.  So it must not be self that lives but Christ must live in us.

We need to watch our thoughts to keep our peace.  We are told that God “wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee:  because he trusteth in thee.”  Isa. 26:3.  When our peace is disturbed we need to check to see where our mind has been or what we were thinking about.