Want God’s Peace
brochure

Description

God’s grace is waiting for everyone to help us carry our crosses and grow in holiness. We don’t need to be in distress in any circumstance. A life of peace is waiting for everyone. This brochure gives someone the basic guidance they need to work towards gaining the grace God wishes to give them.
3.5″ x 14″ brochure quad-fold 100lb glossy paper

Content:
Front:
Want God’s Peace?
Need His Mercy?
Everything is waiting for you!
Inside:
Where is God’s Peace?

At times, life can seem unbearable for many of us. We cry out to God and it feels as if He doesn’t hear us. However, God is waiting to comfort, help, and guide us to “the way of peace” (Romans 3:17). We don’t need to live lives of despair with stress, anxiety, anger, and frustration. We can have lives filled with peace—at all times and in all circumstances—especially during great suffering. Peace is what Christians should be experiencing. This is possible with God. “Great peace have those who love [obey] your law: nothing can make them stumble [despair]” (Psalm 119:165). However, to have this wonderful life of peace God has planned for us, we must first learn how to obtain God’s help to get us there.
From the moment Christ died—when blood and water flowed forth from the Sacred Heart of Jesus—there was a great fountain of mercy for us. In order to obtain His mercy (help), we need to open our hearts to Him. Abundant grace is waiting for us. Sadly, when most of us are in distress we don’t realize that the worry, or untrusting and unloving emotions we experience come from a lack of grace. We mistakenly reject the very grace God desires to give us, which would allow us to happily carry any cross.
The sole reason we lack peace is due to our own choices, not from the sins of others or from our circumstances. We can “rejoice in my [our] suffering” (Colossians 1:24). We unknowingly reject God’s grace, and then we struggle with trusting Him during our crosses (suffering) and end up with a lack of peace. Jesus says, “I want to give Myself to souls and fill them with My love, but few there are who want to accept all the graces My love has intended for them” (St. Faustina’s Diary #1017). When we have a true desire to change our lives—we can accept God’s grace—then we will be able to receive God’s help, so we can finally live lives of peace. What are we doing wrong?
We lose so much grace when we do not pray. The Hour of Great Mercy is 3:00pm—the hour Jesus died (cf. Mark 15:25). Great grace is delivered to us when we pray at that holy hour. At the very least, doesn’t our most beloved Lord deserve our daily adoration at the hour of His death? Every Christian can make a commitment to pray at 3:00pm; it’s so simple to do. We just need to set an alarm, and dedicate at least a moment to pray to Jesus, who literally gave His all to free us from our sins. He gave us the free gift of eternal life at our baptism, with the hope we would embrace His saving grace (not reject it), and choose to spend all of eternity with Him. If we desire a life filled with peace and God’s great mercy, we must start listening to Him.
Jesus said, “At three o’clock, implore [ask with a heart of faith] My mercy, especially for sinners; and, if only for a brief moment, immerse yourself in My Passion [contemplating My suffering because of your sins], particularly in My abandonment at the moment of agony [as when you abandon your crosses—reject your sufferings—that was meant for you to suffer in union with Me]. This is the hour of great mercy for the whole world. I will allow you to enter into My mortal sorrow [to come to understand the consequence of sin to help you develop true sorrow for your offenses so to move you towards salvation]. I will refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of Me in virtue [honor] of My Passion.”
–St. Faustina’s Diary #1320
God dispenses His grace when and how He wills it to be given. God has revealed actions to us which will implore Him to send additional grace to our needy souls—such as obedience to the Word, praying, devotions, fasting, works of mercy, self-denial, uniting our sufferings with Christ, and correctly participating in the sacraments. Since we need an abundance of grace to move ourselves out of our misery and into God’s peace, it would be tragic to intentionally forsake any of the help God has made available to assist us in our ever-challenging lives.
The act of self-denial is a great way to receive God’s grace. The Word says we “must deny him [our] self” (Matthew 16:24). Self-denial is when we do not allow ourselves to have something we want. When we desire something, we can either choose to satisfy ourselves with worldly pleasure or choose to let God fill our souls with His love instead.
 
Back:
It is all of our attachments— distractions from God—either with food, material possessions, money, sex, relaxation, entertainment, friends, pride, etc.—that keep us from being able to accept God’s grace. Many of us have filled our souls with worldly pleasures, leaving no room for God and the peace He so wishes to give us. So the next time you want God—to love Him and receive His grace, deny yourself of something. Even if we do something as simple as denying ourselves food we enjoy eating and saying, “Lord, I don’t want this trifle pleasure, I want You instead.”
“Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:15).
If we want to be filled with God’s love, peace, and mercy, we need to let go of the world and embrace Him. The biggest way we reject God’s grace and mercy is when we don’t obey Him. Every sin we choose to commit, every act of disobedience, is a horrible offense against God and rejects His love. The greater the sin we commit, the greater the rejection. Our sins can become so heinous—as they compile upon one another—that unbeknownst to us, if we do not properly repent of them we end up pushing away all of God’s help.
“It is your crimes [sins] that separate you from your God. It is your sins that make him hide his face so that he does not hear you” (Isa. 59:2).
We must desire to stop offending God. How much do we love God if we only love Him in our thoughts but our actions are opposed to His commands? Is our love true? “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (Jn. 14:15). God said to not have sexual relations outside of marriage (1 Cor. 6:9), to not miss going to Church on Sunday (Ex 20:8), to bless those who curse you (Lk. 6:28), to not dress, act or think immodestly (Gal 5:19-21) as God tells us to “be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct” (1 Pt.1:15), and to love Him above ALL (Mat.22:36-40). Yet, we don‘t do these things. We do bounds of other things God has told us are not holy and are offensive to Him. We intentionally hurt Our Lord’s Sacred Heart and sadly, most don’t repent of them nor seek God’s grace to change from our sinful ways. We are constantly pushing away God and His love but are bewildered, questioning why life is so miserable.
When we find ourselves in great despair, it comes from a lack of grace because of our sins. If we pray, but only open our hearts a little when we do so, we will only receive a little help. It’s easy for us to be happy and feel at peace when things are going well. Even the worst sinners feel happy when everything’s going their way. The real tests come when our crosses show up—when we find ourselves in horrible circumstances and need much grace to find peace. These tests reveal if we need to amend our lives. Do we reject our crosses and want to run from them? Or do we embrace God’s will with a trusting heart, fully confident that God will make everything good in time—when He wills and how He wills, if we trust in Him..
If we want peace, but cannot seem to stop fretting over our sufferings, we must figure out what sins we still need to amend. This will take time and perseverance, but a life and eternity of peace is worth it. Once we amend our sins, we can fully receive God’s grace in order to love our crosses and trust Him, so we don’t become overwhelmed with despair ever again. When we see our sin of worrying over our sufferings, we must see it as a gift from God, as it lets us know we need to change. He wants to enlighten us to our errors that we’ve become so blinded to, in order for us to seek out forgiveness, amend our ways, and be reunited with Him.
Without God’s help—His mercy—true happiness in this earthly life and obtaining eternal life is impossible. It is our sins and attachments to the world that cause our misery on earth and reject the very grace God came to save us with.
“[When] we have been justified by faith [have a saving faith], we have peace [not despair]” (Rom. 5:1).
If we desire a happy life on earth and to accept God’s sanctifying (saving) grace when we die, we truly need to strive to not offend God. We must work as hard as we can, seeking God’s grace, and desire to “sin no more” (Jn. 8:11), as God has commanded us to do. We can gain true sorrow for our sins and embrace God’s mercy. This is how we accept God‘s peace into our lives.
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