December 2024

For me, growing up, many of you have heard me talk about this—I hated the holidays. It took years after Brenda and I were married that I could barely stand holidays. I would get challenged with depression and frustration. I didn’t let it take over me or take me to a horrible place. But I can tell you this: I really didn’t enjoy the holidays. I tried to be as nice to my family as possible and give as much as possible to the people around me. It was a struggle for a long time. I shared many nuggets in that Creating Happy Holidays series that will help you. If you can’t find it on our Impact videos on our website, you can check it out in our store. It’s available for download. So, anyhow, you may want to check it out.

But I want to tell you this: No matter what the holidays have been for you in the past, it’s just like anything else. You can recreate the holidays and turn them into something that, at first, you just tolerate, but ultimately, you get to where you can really enjoy them. Throughout the Bible, God is always speaking of remembering or remembrance.

Now, what’s interesting is biblical meditation is where you think on something until you begin to experience it as if it’s real right in this moment. Now, remembering something is a form of meditation, just like talking about something, gossiping about something, complaining about something, or sitting down and doing literal meditation. Anything that causes you to experience or re-experience something is a form of meditation.

Now, the problem with that is anything that we start experiencing because we start thinking about it, remembering, and talking about actually planting seeds in our hearts according to Jesus’ teaching about the law of the seed. If you want to learn more about the law of the seed, check out my book and series on The Immutable Law of the Seed. And I’m telling you, it will give you some tools to face life with and have incredible victories.

But the problem is when we think back and remember bad experiences until they reach such a place that we’re thinking about them and it’s changing our emotions, it’s planting a seed in our heart that makes it where in the future we can’t enjoy those holidays, we can’t enjoy those situations. It programs our hearts so that we re-experience all of these bad things that have happened to us in the past. And I know that that’s not what you want to do.

So, one of the first things you must do when you begin to remember the things you hated about the holidays or the things that depressed you about the holidays is to interrupt those thoughts. You say, well, how do I interrupt those thoughts? You interrupt those thoughts usually by doing something bizarre or something that influences you again, where you create new thoughts.

And that’s usually where I begin to speak out loud and speak things about what I choose. I choose to enjoy the holidays. I choose to enjoy my family. No matter my financial situation this year, I choose to enjoy this. And I put my focus on God and just like, okay, God, I’m making myself available for you to use me through the holidays to bring joy and peace to other people and interrupt those thoughts, and then begin to think about and choose what you want to experience in the upcoming holidays.

I will share some general teaching here that will help you in every area of life, but it may help you somewhat through the holidays. I’ve got a new series about Irrational Peace that has just come out on impactministries.com. And I’m telling you, this will be such an incredibly powerful series that will help you so much. As you know, everything we put on our website is free. There are thousands of messages that you can check out for free anytime you want. So when you get challenged and depressed, man, go there.

You know, I was talking to a guy one time, and he was a backslidden preacher. He had gotten into sin and had gone through a divorce. He was struggling with immorality. And I don’t remember where he was—either in Thailand, Vietnam, or elsewhere. He wanted to get his life straight. Now he was shacked up with somebody, and he said he had just started praying, and the Lord impressed upon him and encouraged him to listen to some of my messages. I don’t think he even knew I had free messages on my website. He located my website, started listening to those messages, and got his life recovered. You know what? You can enrich your life, build your faith, establish your heart, and recover to have a great life.

When we think about Christmas, one of the first scriptures that comes to many people’s minds is from Luke 2:13, which says, this is where the shepherds were watching their fields, and a heavenly host appeared to them. This heavenly host began praising God and saying. Interestingly, throughout my Christian life, or even before my Christian life, I was taught that angels started singing. Well, that’s not what it says. It just said they started saying something.

We follow God’s model. Speaking changes what’s happening in our minds and, ultimately, our hearts. These angels started speaking to influence the shepherds watching their sheep at night. It says they started praising God and said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and goodwill toward men.” As a child and growing up, I can remember that probably even in my early days of Christianity, I thought the angels had “peace on earth, goodwill among men.” This idea was that Jesus came to make goodwill and peace among men.

This series that I have in our CyberChurch that you can watch every week for free really helps you understand what peace is, how God brings peace, and how you can participate in this irrational peace of God. If you’re watching this and not receiving notifications about the new series I put out, please go to my website and sign up for it.

Every week I’ll let you know what series we’re in and what message we’re presenting that week. They don’t cost you anything; we just want to be a blessing. Many people use these in Bible studies, home Bible studies, and even some churches use them like Sunday evening and midweek church services. So, it may be something you want to check out.

There will be a time when we have peace among men, but it will not be until the New Jerusalem comes down to earth, and we literally have true heaven on earth right now. As long as there’s wickedness in the world, there will not be peace among men. Now, there can be some peace among some men, but the real truth is we’ll never come to a place. You know, as a hippie, we used to think smoking weed would eventually bring peace among people because when you smoke weed, you mellowed out. And then, of course, I was a musician. Musicians convinced themselves that they could change the world through music.

Governments think that they can bring peace to the world through war. It’s just crazy—everything contrary to the Word of God that we believe could bring peace here on earth. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in everybody else’s world or heart out there. The question is, do I have peace in my heart? This scripture does not say that through Jesus, God will establish peace on earth. It says that on the earth, there will be good will and peace toward men.

Wait a minute. If it’s toward man, who is it from? This talks about something so phenomenal that it calls the angels to break out and praise God. Because you see, since the time that sin was brought into the world, there hasn’t been peace between God and man. Man has, in his heart, been afraid of God. He felt like God was against him, and he had guilt and shame because of the sin in his heart.

But the real truth is that while Jesus, in His first coming, did not come to make peace among men, He did come to make sure there was peace toward men and to make it so that every person could have peace in their heart no matter what was going on around them.

I come from a chaotic world, and I’m telling you this: in the 50-plus years I’ve had in the ministry, I’ve faced some incredibly challenging situations. I have faced the same kind of situations you have: sicknesses, life-threatening illnesses, losing all my money, losing property, and facing persecution—literally having people try to kill me. But the amazing thing was that through those things, I discovered I could still have peace in my heart, even though the world around me was going crazy and people around me were seeking to destroy my peace.

Here’s the thing we must understand: God’s peace doesn’t come like the peace of the world. Jesus said He had peace for us, but it wasn’t the same kind of peace the world gets. He says, “I’ve got peace for you, but it’s not what the world gives.” So it doesn’t make sense. It’s not even logical to most people because they don’t know the God of peace. They don’t experience the Prince of Peace, they haven’t entered into the covenant of peace, and they haven’t heard the gospel of peace. They are not letting peace rule and reign in their hearts. It’s amazing how all aspects of our lives as believers only function as they should when we have peace in our hearts. Peace changes the way we interact with God, with people, and even with ourselves.

One of the things that’s so incredibly interesting about the word “peace” is that when we’re trying to have peace with people, we often think that we must compromise with them. We tend to believe that we can give up a little bit of our position, a little bit of our standards, a little bit of our morals, and a little bit of our values. They give up some of theirs, and eventually, we have peace. But peace doesn’t come through compromise. Interestingly, and you’ll learn all about this in my series on Irrational Peace, peace comes when you destroy whatever is causing chaos in your life.

We tend to look outside of ourselves and think that the people around us or the situations outside of us rob us of peace. However, that is really not the case. We need to eradicate our beliefs and the destructive and negative thoughts we reflect on that are robbing us of peace and creating chaos in our lives. We must destroy whatever is in our own hearts that is robbing us of peace and keeping us in turmoil.

So, I want to encourage you to engage with this topic, and you can access my series on peace for free throughout December to learn how to cultivate peace in your heart. When you face what’s causing conflict in your heart, you might say, “I know what’s causing the conflict in my heart; it’s that person over there.” You may feel annoyed or angry because of the things they say or do. However, they probably will not change, but you can change what’s in your heart.

You don’t have to compromise or agree with them; you can address the issues that make you feel angry or fearful by seeking the Word of God and discovering what He says about these feelings. Trust in those truths, give yourself to God, and ask Him to bring peace to your heart so that you don’t let chaos rule your life.

People often ask me for advice when they are going through conflict or feeling upset with their spouses. When someone shares their frustrations with me, I always ask, “So, you’re letting someone else determine your peace?” Many respond, “No, I’m just saying that what they did hurt me.” Yeah, but you have to understand that you have control over what hurts you, whether you realize it or not. You have control over what your reaction is going to be to what hurts you.

Many times, when we first got married, harsh words were exchanged between Brenda and me, just like it is with any couple. And man, I would get hurt, angry, frustrated, and then I’d start getting critical of her own heart. I finally realized I was letting her and whatever was going on with her rob me of my peace. Nobody is going to determine my peace and joy. I will determine it. And I started realizing I could make the simple decision: I choose not to be annoyed by this. I choose to have peace. I choose to be kind. I choose to be understanding. I choose to be merciful. So, I send away this offense, pain, and frustration.

When I started doing that, it took a little while for it to really work in my heart. But after doing that for a few years and then after a few decades, when something happens that comes up in my heart, I can walk into another room and say, “I choose not to feel this annoyance. I choose not to feel this anger. And I choose to feel peace, love, acceptance, and patience. I choose to be patient.” Amazingly, that battle is over in twenty or thirty seconds because instead of trying to deal with people outside me, I deal with what’s in my heart.

We have misunderstood that scripture, which says we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and every high thing. Second Corinthians 10 goes on to say that we have to deal with every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Many people take that scripture in Ephesians and 2 Corinthians 10 and say we must fight with the devil. No, we don’t. The devil’s already defeated; Jesus has already defeated him. What we have got to do is, number one, not fight with the people. We don’t wrestle or fight with flesh and blood.

So, what am I dealing with? What “high thing” am I dealing with? Well, I’m dealing with those thoughts that have exalted themselves to such a high position in my mind and heart, affecting my emotions to the point that I think I don’t have any control. I start believing a lie. And you know what? It is a lie. I can choose to have the peace of God in any situation. So please go to our website. You can go to impactministries.com or DrJimRichards.com, and man, I’m telling you, you can get some incredible tools for choosing and living in peace because you destroy that high thing. And that high thing is not the devil; that high thing is our own thoughts.

The Apostle Paul says these imaginations, arguments, and thoughts are inside our heads. So, when we deal with what’s going on in our hearts, suddenly, not only do we have peace, but we can actually bring peace to the situation. We can bring peace to these people that annoy us so much. We can have peace with them, and eventually, we can influence them.

Philippians 4:6 is a good example of this. “Be anxious for nothing.” In other words, don’t get troubled. Why should you get troubled? In several places, Jesus said, “Don’t let your heart be troubled.” We have control over it. You might say, “No, I don’t. These people annoy me so bad.” Well, they annoy you because you have learned to make a habit of letting them annoy you. You can choose not to be annoyed. You say that is not true. Yes, it is. It’s challenging for you at first because most of your life, you’ve become annoyed, and you thought that was natural. Well, it is natural if you’ve got a carnal mind, but it’s not natural for us who are in Jesus.

So, we need to deal with our hearts. It starts by not letting ourselves get troubled about anything. It says, “In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God that passes all understanding, doesn’t even make any sense, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now, I’m telling you, this can happen in an instant. You can get over the offense in minutes, and God will lead you.

One of the reasons we don’t make good decisions and don’t win many of the battles for our health is because peace is so foreign to us that we can’t recognize the voice of God in our hearts. When our minds are filled with static, when we have so much clutter, tension, and stress going on inside of us, we have to say, “No. I choose not to be troubled. I choose not to be worried.”

Now, this Christmas, you will be around people who have the potential to annoy you. I heard a commentary, which made me angry—a righteous anger. It wasn’t like “I want to kill you” type of anger. But this commentator was angry over the recent election’s outcome, and you may be angry over the recent election’s outcome; I don’t know. Regardless of which way you voted, there will be people around you that totally disagree with you, or there will be people there that you disagree with. The commentator told people that maybe they just needed to take a break from those people and stay away from them during the holidays. That’s the most ludicrous, stupid thing I’ve ever heard!

I’m not going to spend time around people who are argumentative and start conflicts, and I’m not going to bring those people into my home during the holidays and make it so my kids, grandkids, or great-grandkids can’t enjoy the holidays. I’m not going to do that.

One of the things I hated growing up and one of the reasons I hated holidays was the obligation of being around people I despise. Being around a bunch of drunken, violent people always turned into chaos. You always wonder who will end up going to the hospital because any time this bunch gets together, there will be some fights. You don’t know if somebody will get shot, stabbed, or beat up. You just don’t know what will happen, and it was horrible. I hate being around those people.

I’m just not going to expose my kids to that. I’m not going to expose my wife to that. I can’t expose my grandkids or my great-grandkids to that. I understand there has to be some wisdom about who you expose yourself to. Still, at the same time, there’s no reason in the world that we can’t have political differences with people or even have some theological differences with people. We don’t have to fight to prove that we’re right. We don’t have to lose the peace or create conflict just because we disagree on some points.

But that commentator says, yeah, you need to take a break from each other and just let them know if you voted for so-and-so, then you affected my life, and I can’t be around you. That’s the kind of advice and bitterness that separates families, creating all this chaos in the world. I’m not having it in my life. The real truth is we can be peacemakers with people who feel that way, and sometimes, it’s just as simple as not getting agitated.

Sometimes, you have to say, we’re just not going to be talking about politics here today, or we’re not talking about this. You can be kind; if you’re at peace, you become the norm. You can bring people back to peace. The Bible talks about how a soft word turns away wrath. The problem is that if you’re not at peace and people say something you don’t like, you get just as angry as they get, and you ramp up the conflict and the hateful words.

But if you’re at a place of peace, you don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t have to explain your position. You can say, “We won’t talk about those things here. And I’m not changing my feelings about you just because we disagree politically.” You can find ways to do this, but if you choose to have peace, you will discover the pathway of peace and how to live in it. You will learn to be what the Bible calls a peacemaker.

You must be really interested in being a peacemaker. Remember, this is not a person who makes everything turn out how they want. Real peace in your heart means it doesn’t matter how it turns out for everybody else or even how some situations turn out for me. That doesn’t mean I am going to lose my peace. But I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do: I won’t allow something to take control of me. We don’t have to do this because I am in Jesus, and you are in Jesus. But when we have peace in our hearts, we start being peacemakers.

I’m reading this from the Amplified Bible in Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and it talks about how peacemakers will be called the sons of God. The Amplified Bible looks at these words and amplifies them by going to the original language, asking, “What does blessed mean?” By digging deeper into those words, you start finding benefits that come to you, not because you’re asking God to give them to you, but because when these things are in your heart, they change not just you but your environment. Sometimes, it influences the people around you.

I remember one of the first jobs I had after I got saved. I was working for Thycol Chemical Corporation out at Redstone Arsenal. I became what was called a B operator. We worked on missile motors, rockets, and all kinds of stuff out there. The A operator managed the group, and he had a supervisor who managed him. We were trying to meet some production goals for the company. The A operator had gone somewhere, and the supervisor came through. When the supervisor came through, he wanted us to take a break because of some work. He said, “Richards, you guys head over to the break house, take your break now, and come back because I’ve got some stuff I want you to do afterward.” Well, the A operator wasn’t there. This guy managed a team of people. We all entered the break room, and I sat back there.

When the A operator entered the door, he saw me, and this break room was filled with people. He started cussing at me. He was screaming at the top of his voice, just swearing at me. “You didn’t have no blank business coming over here and bringing the rest of the crew. I don’t know who the blank you think you are!” He cussed me to the dirt. He came up to the table where I was sitting, leaned across, and had his face right up in my face, just cussing me to the dirt, as we say down here in the South.

In the past, I would have just picked up one of those Coke bottles on the table and cracked it on his head. I would have gone to jail for it, but I wouldn’t have cared because that’s how I lived. That’s how I grew up. You just stood up to someone who gives you trouble. You just hurt him. And that’s the way you handled things.

I thought, “I’m going to crack this guy’s head open and put him in the hospital. I’m not going to have to listen to him.” So, that was supposed to be my source of peace. Well, it was an amazing thing because he just went on for a long time, and I never said a word to him. When he reached the end of his rant, I finally said, “You know what? I’m sorry you didn’t know we were going on break, but the supervisor told me to come over here.” And so, man, he stopped. He was looking for a fight. He wanted us to fight.

So, you know, I just started praying for the guy. I mean, I thought anybody who acts that crazy over nothing has a real problem. So, I just started praying for him. The next day, I was walking down one of the hallways in the building we worked in and saw him coming. You could tell he didn’t want to look at me or talk to me. I thought, “Yeah, I’m fixing to get another cussing here,” but I stayed at peace. We met, and he wouldn’t even look at me. He walked past me, stopped, and said, “Hey, Richards.” I turned around, and I’m telling you, he had tears in his eyes. He said, “Man, I have never talked to anybody like that. I can’t even believe that I did that.” And he apologized.

Well, you know what? That was real peace because that is “putting the coals of fire on somebody’s head” when they do these things. The fire isn’t to condemn them, to hurt them. The fire of mercy, grace, and kindness is to burn down, to destroy that thing that’s creating chaos in them. You quench that fire by love.

When a house is burning down, you don’t put the fire out by throwing gasoline on it. You put the fire out by putting something else there; you don’t add another accelerator — you put water on it. When you’re kind and patient and walk that stuff out, you’re not putting a repellent back on that fire burning that other person. You’re putting water on that fire.

So, he apologized to me, and we became really good friends. He appreciated it so much. He was one of those guys who was hard to witness to, but when you’re the peacemaker, the rational one who stays calm, kind, and merciful, these people see Christ in you in a way they’ve never seen before. It does something to their heart.

I can’t tell you how many violent, mean people I have encountered — people who either meant me harm or did me harm. My stepfather tried to murder me in my sleep. When I was a runaway, I left home at 14 years old. I went back home, I think, for the first time when I was about 18. I went back to spend the night, and my stepfather and another guy broke into the bedroom I was sleeping in to kill me. I got stabbed. And you know what? I gave my life to the Lord. I never brought that up. I was never cruel or unmerciful to him. He was one of the meanest men I ever met. Entertainment for him was getting drunk, going out to a bar, and seeing how many people he could beat up.

In all the years I knew my stepfather, I never saw him lose a fight, but I saw him put a lot of people in the hospital. He was tougher than me, meaner than me, and stronger than me, yet I was always good to him. Shortly before I led him to the Lord, we were talking one night, and he discovered that he had cancer. He talked to me about caring for my mom, his wife, after he was gone. We talked briefly, and he called me Jimmy — all my family called me Jimmy. He said, “You know what, Jimmy? I don’t know about this religion all these other people got, but I know the religion you got is real.” Religion was his word for Christianity. He said, “I know I can trust you to do this.”

Well, I got to lead him to Jesus before he died. That’s kind of more important than winning the fight. It’s kind of more important than being right in the situation. There are all these benefits to being a peacemaker. One of the greatest benefits is getting to help that other person.

Matthew 5:9 in the Amplified Bible says, “Blessed, enjoying, enviable happiness.” Do you want to be so happy that it’s enviable to others? That’s one of the perks of being a peacemaker. Blessed, enjoying, enviable happiness, spiritually prosperous with life, joy, and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of the outward conditions. It says that the peacemakers are the makers and maintainers of peace and will be called the sons of God. They’ll be called the sons of God by their enemies, by the people who seek them harm and are angry at God. And we get to be the ones to change the environment in the room.

Be sure to join this series in our CyberChurch ministry. By the way, every Thursday, I release a new program and decide to enter into and live a life of true peace that is irrational, beyond understanding, can’t even be explained, and comes with more benefits. I go into this in my series about all these different benefits of just having peace in your heart.

Not only that, I want you to know that there are many other benefits I have not yet gone into; I didn’t cover them here because there are too many of them. But I want you to enjoy your holidays, and I want you to have peace. You can check my website and see if the video series for creating Happy Holidays is available. If it is, check that out if you struggle, particularly around the holidays, but get peace in your heart and become a peacemaker.

Let me remind you of this quickly: We have an incredible special. So many people no longer use CDs and DVDs, so we are clearing out our entire inventory at an incredible price. Remember, anytime you purchase any resources from our ministry, we use that income to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. So, if you want to invest in yourself, reach the world, and minister worldwide, which we do daily, listen. Our broadcasts are on in every country in the world as a whole. Every time you purchase something or contribute, you’re helping us change how the world sees God.

Let me say this: I know many people who get this video are not World Changers with us, and that’s alright. But I want to invest in you. I want to be a blessing to you. You may choose to become a World Changer and start helping us financially every month so that we can keep starting Bible schools all over the world, training leaders all over the world, reaching into prisons and jails, and doing all these things we do. And man, it costs money to do this. We don’t take up offerings from any of the people we reach; we take up offerings from people who are touched and blessed by these messages.

If you want to help us, we would appreciate it very, very much. I hope you enjoyed this. I hope you got something out of it. I hope you’ll check out the other resources we have. Be sure to check all the links below. We have all kinds of interesting things that we’ll be sharing with you. We probably will have some testimonies that will be popping out just recently, and we’ll have some new testimonies to share with you very soon.

So listen, you have a great holiday, and I look forward to it. Every Thursday, we release a new CyberChurch message. So, be sure to check it out. Blessings to you. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas to you, and I will talk to you again soon.

Merry Christmas!