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1 Thessalonians 1

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1 Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

2 We give praise to God at all times for you, keeping you in memory in our prayers;

3 Having ever in mind your work of faith and acts of love and the strength of your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father;

4 Being conscious, my brothers, dear to God, that you have been marked out by God's purpose;

5 Because our good news came to you, not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Spirit, so that you were completely certain of it; even as you saw what our behaviour to you was like from our love to you.

6 And you took us and the Lord as your example, after the word had come to you in much trouble, with joy in the Holy Spirit;

7 So that you became an example to all those who have faith in Christ in Macedonia and Achaia.

8 For not only was the word of the Lord sounding out from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God is made clear; so that we have no need to say anything.

9 For they themselves give the news of how we came among you; and how you were turned from images to God, to the worship of a true and living God,

10 Waiting for his Son from heaven, who came back from the dead, even Jesus, our Saviour from the wrath to come.

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Peace

  
Peace

In ordinary life, we tend to think of "peace" as essentially "a lack of conflict." As a nation, if we're not at war, it's a time of peace. On a spiritual level, though, peace is something much more powerful, and much more active. Rather than looking at it as the "lack of conflict," in fact, you could look at it as "the active effect of non-conflict," a force drawing things together and unifying them. Ultimately, of course, that force is the Lord Himself, and the unity formed by His perfect love and His perfect wisdom. We feel it when we allow ourselves to be drawn to Him, described in the works of Swedenborg this way: "peace in the heavens is the divine nature intimately affecting everything good there with blessedness." We also feel it when what we want in our hearts is aligned with what we know to be right -- a state we achieve ever more fully as we move toward the Lord and toward heaven. These things are meant when the Bible talks about peace: the one-ness of purpose in the Lord, and the harmony we experience when our desires align with His loves and our thoughts align with His wisdom.