How to "Let not your heart be troubled"

Believers, Christ says in John 14:27 "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, neither let it be afraid."

In the natural, it is quite impossible to "let not your heart be troubled" if you are depressed or if your child is sick with an incurable disease. Just imagine that you are on holiday and you get news that you might lose your job/source of income (that paid for the same holiday) upon your return. For many of us, no amount of "don't worry, it is well" would suffice in making us totally worry-free.

But in Christ, we get to see His word through the lens of grace and see its manifestation in our lives by grace too. The One who says "Let not your heart be troubled" has already finished the work of giving us rest and ensuring that we enter His rest. So how to let not your heart be troubled?

First, one has to understand WHY God raised our Lord Jesus from the dead. We see why in Romans 4:25 where it is said of our Saviour "Who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised up because of our being declared righteous."

God did not just raise Christ from the dead because He is His Son. Christ was raised from the dead "because of our being declared righteous." Think of this as you committing a crime and then someone who loves you agrees to bear your punishment of going to an impregnable prison where getting out before the prison term is done is impossible. The only way your substitute can come out of this prison is to finish serving your sentence. God's raising Christ from the dead is the divine receipt that our sin debt has been paid in full and in Him, we are forever righteous through and through. In Him, we no longer owe God a sin debt, even if we sin, because Christ paid it all with a one-time payment:

"But our High Priest offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then He sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand." Hebrews 10:12.

So how to let not your heart be troubled? See Romans 10: 8-11:

"But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

When you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe that you have been made 100% righteous in Him because God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. "Salvation" here is not just being saved to go to heaven; it is also deliverance from the molestation of enemies and redemption from all earthly ills- fear, stress, lack, distress, debt, discontentment, disease, whatever TROUBLES us. It is being saved from the penalty, power and pleasure of sin. The word used in the original Greek translation of the New Testament is Swthria (pronounced soteria) and it encompasses all these meanings.

With our hearts, we believe that we have been made righteous by His obedience, not ours from doing good and keeping the law. With our mouths we confess this righteousness and salvation follows. This is the logic of heaven but many people are still trying to get right with God by keeping the law (human effort) and thus negate the effect of His promise in their lives. See Galatians 5:4.

When you believe and speak out with your mouth your righteousness in Christ, every blessing accruing to the righteous in His word becomes yours. For instance, Isaiah 54:14-

"In righteousness you shall be established; You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; And from terror, for it shall not come near you."

Notice not our own righteousness but the Lord's, and He establishes us in it. We have none and can never have any of our own, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:" Romans 3:10. Nothing to do with our own efforts. Even our believing is by grace according to John 6:44. See our Abba Father's love for us! Whenever you are troubled, speak out your righteousness in Christ and meditate on His promises to the righteous, including all of the blessings in Deuteronomy 28!

Seek first the kingdom of God and His Righteousness, not your own. All these things, including grace to "Let not your heart be troubled" will be added unto you. The word that brings salvation (including salvation from acts of sin, sickness, lack, slothfulness, oversabi, pride, oppression, whatever troubles one) is not in some faraway crusade. "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”

The Holy Spirit will teach you all things.