REAL PEACE...REAL JOY
Greetings in Jesus:
Here I am up again at midnight trying to get my mind to settle down, but realizing that will not happen until my heart is at rest. That only happens for me when I have given all that I have inside of me to the cause of Christ for a day.
My real peace is found in what God has called me to do in this life, and it starts with what I am doing right now in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep...writing to you my dear ones in Christ. I often think about what Jesus said when His disciples would ask Him about His need for rest or food..."I have a source of strength that you do not know about" would be His answer to them, and I realize that many times now in my own life I am finding that I too have a source of power within me that others do not understand or know about. That source of course is the power of God's Spirit that continues to drive me forward in spite of setbacks in health and age.
Just as Paul wrote to the Roman Church in Romans 5:1-11 We all have peace with God but we have to learn what real peace is because it isn't what we think it is according to the world. It is not the calmness and tranquility we think of like being on a beach with a drink in our hand and no trouble to be seen in any direction...real peace means that we have been reconciled with God, and there is no more hostility between us and Him. There is no sin that is between us; nothing blocking our relationship, and that peace between us and God the Father is only because of what Jesus did on the Cross of Calvary for us. In the last couple of blogs I have mentioned that we need to really understand the message that God has sent to us through Jesus Christ. There is a two sided reality to the Christian life...on one hand we are complete in Christ if we accept Him, and on the other we are continuing to grow and become perfected in God's Spirit. This is all happening at the same time, and in the same way that Jesus was for us while He was here among us we too have the status of Kings, and the duties of slaves to love one another and put one another above ourselves.
We can enjoy the peace of being as a King in this world, but we share the duty to live as slaves to love one another so that this world would be able to see how the Kingdom of Heaven should operate. Unless we can love better than the Scribes and Pharisees we still have no place within that Kingdom. We have to remember these two sides in order to find peace and unity in the Spirit of God. I think this is the only way that we will not grow discouraged as we all live with the temptations of this life. There will always be issues, and problems, but if we do this the right way we can establish a family that truly loves one another and we can depend upon the power that is available to us in Christ to show that servant side, and at the same time be witnesses to this world of what it is to be a part of God's Kingdom. It is this that Paul calls our reasonable service Romans 12: 2. It is a service to God and to one another that becomes critical to our spiritual growth and development. Real peace...the kind that comes from knowing God and being a part of the real Kingdom of Heaven goes well beyond the understanding of the world around us. It gives us the courage to finally let go of the white knuckle grip we have on this life to experience what it is like to actually live as a child of God while we still live here in this life.
I pray that we all can become familiar with all that Christ has to offer us through the power of His Spirit to not only love Him; but also to love one another as He has loved us. May you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
Here I am up again at midnight trying to get my mind to settle down, but realizing that will not happen until my heart is at rest. That only happens for me when I have given all that I have inside of me to the cause of Christ for a day.
My real peace is found in what God has called me to do in this life, and it starts with what I am doing right now in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep...writing to you my dear ones in Christ. I often think about what Jesus said when His disciples would ask Him about His need for rest or food..."I have a source of strength that you do not know about" would be His answer to them, and I realize that many times now in my own life I am finding that I too have a source of power within me that others do not understand or know about. That source of course is the power of God's Spirit that continues to drive me forward in spite of setbacks in health and age.
Just as Paul wrote to the Roman Church in Romans 5:1-11 We all have peace with God but we have to learn what real peace is because it isn't what we think it is according to the world. It is not the calmness and tranquility we think of like being on a beach with a drink in our hand and no trouble to be seen in any direction...real peace means that we have been reconciled with God, and there is no more hostility between us and Him. There is no sin that is between us; nothing blocking our relationship, and that peace between us and God the Father is only because of what Jesus did on the Cross of Calvary for us. In the last couple of blogs I have mentioned that we need to really understand the message that God has sent to us through Jesus Christ. There is a two sided reality to the Christian life...on one hand we are complete in Christ if we accept Him, and on the other we are continuing to grow and become perfected in God's Spirit. This is all happening at the same time, and in the same way that Jesus was for us while He was here among us we too have the status of Kings, and the duties of slaves to love one another and put one another above ourselves.
We can enjoy the peace of being as a King in this world, but we share the duty to live as slaves to love one another so that this world would be able to see how the Kingdom of Heaven should operate. Unless we can love better than the Scribes and Pharisees we still have no place within that Kingdom. We have to remember these two sides in order to find peace and unity in the Spirit of God. I think this is the only way that we will not grow discouraged as we all live with the temptations of this life. There will always be issues, and problems, but if we do this the right way we can establish a family that truly loves one another and we can depend upon the power that is available to us in Christ to show that servant side, and at the same time be witnesses to this world of what it is to be a part of God's Kingdom. It is this that Paul calls our reasonable service Romans 12: 2. It is a service to God and to one another that becomes critical to our spiritual growth and development. Real peace...the kind that comes from knowing God and being a part of the real Kingdom of Heaven goes well beyond the understanding of the world around us. It gives us the courage to finally let go of the white knuckle grip we have on this life to experience what it is like to actually live as a child of God while we still live here in this life.
I pray that we all can become familiar with all that Christ has to offer us through the power of His Spirit to not only love Him; but also to love one another as He has loved us. May you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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