Scriptures: Galatians 5:22, Philippians 4:4-7, Psalm 73:28, Isaiah 41:10, 26:3, 1 Peter 5:7, Romans 5:1

The fruit of peace that the Bible talks about in Galatians is not the same as peace between nations or people. It's an internal peace--a calmness of spirit that you can have inside even when there is a raging storm on the outside. You'd think that a relationship with Christ would give us personal peace all the time, but we have things in our lives that can rob us of peace. Pressures and deadlines to meet, problems, illness, sudden loss, even people and relationships, a spouse, a family member. All of a sudden something hits you and your sense of peace vanishes as your blood pressure rises. In this message, Dr. Merritt walks through how to get past worry and find real, inner and lasting peace as we cast our cares to God and trust Him to bear our burdens.

"What robs our peace is when we focus on the problems and the pressures and the people and we forget about God. When you forget about the problems and the pressures and the people and focus on God then your gentleness will be evident to everybody. Do you know what the word 'gentleness' means? It means literally ;easy going.' You won’t be anxious. You won't be nervous. You will be relaxed, because you know that God is with you and God is in control." --Dr. Merritt

Keywords: Fruit of the Spirit, tasty, peace, calm, storm, worry, rejoice, relax, bully, release, steadfast, mind, focus, gentleness, easy going, cast, cares, thanksgiving, grow, problems, understanding, guard, rest, anxiety