Category: Peace

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Peace

Posted on by Dorci

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”  Philippians 4:8-9

 

Heavenly Father, you are praiseworthy.  You are true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable, and we choose to think about you and all the ways you’ve shown us your goodness.  You’ve rescued us time and time again.  You forgive all our sins and have removed them as far as the east is from the west, and remember them no more.  Your grace is always upon your children, and your mercy, too. 

You have promised to prepare a place for us with you and to come again for us and take us with you where you are, where there is no more crying or pain or suffering.  Your love sustains us, teaches us, and matures us until the day when your wisdom says it’s time to come home.  Lord, in all these constant ponderings throughout the day and night, you give us peace, and we praise you.  You know the trouble we face in this world, but we know you’ve already overcome it.  Help us cling to you, both in the times when things are going well, and in times when things are hard.

Give us the strength to turn to you when the enemy is whispering in our ears that you don’t care.  That you can’t possibly love us after what we’ve done.  Give us the strength to call those what they are: lies from the pit of hell.  Help us cling to the truth, and where our beliefs are false, we ask that you would change them.  Where we believe wrong things about you, please show us the truth.  And where we believe wrong things about ourselves, please break down those strongholds of falsehood, knowing they keep us from living purely in the victory you would have us.  We give you our minds and our hearts to mold as you will.  We receive your peace, and we give you all the glory.  In the mighty name of Jesus, amen.

The Cross is Just the Beginning

Posted on by Dorci

“Then Jesus said to His disciples,
If anyone desires to come after Me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”
Matthew 16:24
 

It is just into the first century.  The roads are dusty, the work is back-breaking, the nights are long.  The religious leaders are corrupt, and the Roman Empire rules the region with an iron hand.  Taxes are exorbitant and punishment is cruel.  Beheading, strangling, being buried alive, and among the worst: crucifixion.  Being hung on a cross.  The people are afraid, looking for a savior.

A man called Jesus has risen from among them and has garnered a following.  He teaches in the Temple, raises the dead, makes the blind to see, and feeds thousands from five loaves of bread and two fish.

The people begin to have hope, especially the twelve who are His constant companions, those He’s taken under His wing.

But He begins to talk of suffering.  That He “must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”  Luke 9:22

And then He drops a bombshell.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”  Luke 9:23

Those with Him look around at one another with a stunned and confused look on their faces.

Take up our cross?  Daily? What is he talking about?

Jesus would predict His own death two more times. He would lead the way.

Still, His friends couldn’t grasp what He was saying.

The night comes and He is betrayed by one of them and dragged before Herod Antipas, the son of Herod of Great who was responsible for killing all the boys under the age of two when he heard that men had come to worship the one who was born King of the Jews.  Herod Antipas sends him to Pontius Pilate, and Pilate sends Him first to be flogged, and then to the cross.

 

Jesus carries His cross until near collapse from exhaustion and pain. He is nailed to it, and lifted up to a punishment reserved for the worst of criminals.  A punishment designed to not only torture and kill, but to shame and send a message to all those watching.

His friends scatter. Their minds are reeling from the events they’d just seen. They think back to the time Jesus said they must take up their cross.

Are we next?

Darkness comes over the land.  Jesus dies and is buried in a tomb.

And that is that. Hope is lost. Death is the end.

But then the morning of the third day comes.

 

It is evening now and the disciples are gathered together in a room with the doors locked for fear of facing their own torture, grieving over the death of their friend and the hope He’d given them for a better life, when suddenly they hear –

“Peace be with you!”

It’s Him! Wait..is it? Is it a ghost?  No!  It’s Jesus! And their joy comes flooding back.

And again – 

“Peace be with you!”

They laugh and hug and rejoice, and they realize death was not the end. 

It was only the beginning.

Maybe the understanding about what He meant by denying themselves, taking up their cross and following Him came as slowly to them as it does to us.  But He had given them a stark picture.

It doesn’t mean reluctantly accepting a disease, or a difficult relationship.  It doesn’t mean sacrificing any one thing.

It means dying.  To everything.

Sacrificing oneself. 

Willingly, wholeheartedly, just as He had done.

The word Jesus used when He said “deny” themselves is aparneomai – to deny utterly.  To disown.

If we want to follow Christ, to be His disciple, the only way is to follow Him all the way to the cross.  Not a literal cross, of course, but a cross for the flesh, the self will.  It is saying to the Father what He said in the garden: “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Christ might have in mind for us to go and do and say what we wouldn’t dare.  Will we follow? Will we die to our desires, let go of our fears, and go with Him?

Dying to our wishes and desires, giving up the life we had in mind, is not the end!

There is the glorious morning.  A new beginning.

It is the beginning to a bigger, better life than we had ever imagined. Infinitely bigger than a life of catching fish.

We will become fishers of men, and women and children and neighbors and family.

When we walk with the risen Christ, we are filled with Life ourselves, and all that He is and has for us.

Peace be with you!

 

Exposed to the Light

Posted on by Dorci

 

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32

I bowed my head to pray and to forgive someone who had hurt me years ago.  As I was praying, I started to say things like “they probably didn’t mean it…”  

And the Holy Spirit stopped me right there.  “Don’t make excuses.  Bring the sin into the Light.  Acknowledge it, all of it, so that you can completely forgive it.”

Of course He was right.  If I’d made excuses for the sin and acknowledged only part of it, I would only be able to forgive a part of it, and the rest would continue to grow its bitter root in my heart.

Jesus hung on the cross, wearing only a mocking crown of thorns on His head, fully exposed to the crowd, the elements, the humiliation, and became sin.  My sin and your sin. 

Our sin was on Him, and none of it was covered.  He laid bare before the Holy Light of the Father, with every sin heaped upon Him, offering up Himself as a sacrifice.  Nothing was held back.  No excuses were made.  It was raw and ugly.  Sin always is.

And it was forgiven.  All of it. 

There is now no condemnation…

When we stand before the Father asking for forgiveness for our sin, or forgiving another, bring it into the Light.  All of it.  Acknowledge it, no matter how painful and ugly and humiliating it is.  And let God pull the sin’s darkness out from the roots and plant His peace in its place.

Finding Peace

Posted on by Dorci

 

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.”  Luke 2:14

I had always set up our nativity scene on a buffet table right by the front door.  Everyone who came and went saw it. Anyone in the living room or kitchen could see it.  And I liked it that way.  I always wanted Jesus to be front and center of Christmas.

Then we moved to a new house and the best place for the buffet was in the front living room.  You know, that room no one ever goes into.  The one that gets passed by on the way to the family (tv) room and the kitchen.

We started unpacking Christmas decorations and the nativity scene automatically went on the buffet. But I still wanted Jesus to be front and center, so I walked around the house looking for a more suitable place for him.  Nothing seemed right.  I didn’t want it where it could get broken.  Some places weren’t big enough.  Some were too high.

“But people will have to go out of their way to see it” I thought. 

Yes, yes they will.

 

There was a lot going on that first Christmas in the little town of Bethlehem and throughout the surrounding regions. The first census had been ordered by Caesar Augustus, and there was a lot of traffic as people made their way to their tribal towns to be counted.  Joseph and Mary traveled 70 miles…70 miles, from Nazareth to Bethlehem, while Mary was very pregnant.

They came into town, dusty and thirsty and exhausted. Maybe the birth pains had already begun. All they wanted was a place to lie down and prepare to give birth to the King of kings.

But there was no place for them. They knocked on doors, but everyone had gotten there ahead of them and every room was filled. Joseph and Mary found refuge where they could, somewhere near the animals, away from the crowd.

No one knew they were there. Not one person in that small but suddenly bustling town knew that just around the corner, in the still of the night, under the stars, was the center of the universe.

Those who heard were the shepherds out in the quiet field, suddenly hearing from a host of angels that the Messiah had been born. They left their lives for a moment, and went out of their way to see the Savior of the world, the One God’s people had been waiting for.

Some time later the magi left their lives for a moment, and went out of their way to follow a star to worship and bring gifts to the King of the Jews.

Christmas is a busy, bustling, noisy time of year. But really, when are our lives not that way? For most of us, not very often.

Our lives are full of busyness and running here and there.  The world is full of chaos and anxiety, and is as short on peace now as it was then.  It always will be.  Funny though, how we can try looking for peace in the world, right in the middle of all that chaos.

But God calls us to come away.

Like the shepherds and the magi, when we come away from the noise, away from the hustle and bustle of the season no matter what season that may be, to worship the King, to see and hear from the Savior of the world, the Savior of our own lives, we will again find a miracle, wrapped in humility and joy and peace.

When we go out of our way to meet with Him and give Him our whole heart’s attention, He will be there, waiting, and we will be ready to receive Him and all He is and has for us.

 

This is God’s Will for You

Posted on by Dorci

 

“…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  1 Thessalonians 5:18

Thanksgiving week comes and we hear people talking about the things they’re thankful for. Maybe you sit around the Thanksgiving table and tell one another what you’re thankful for. But maybe you’re a little hard-pressed to think of anything to be thankful for this year.

God tells us to give thanks in all circumstances. All is a pretty inclusive word.

Not just the good stuff. But all the stuff. Now, I know that’s a really hard to thing to do sometimes. When you’re missing family members, when your health is bad, when the money is tight.  Sometimes it’s an act of sheer will, of obedience, of faith that God is going to do something in and with those circumstances.

It’s easy to give thanks once that circumstance has passed and we can see the good the Lord has wrought in it.  But we are to give thanks when we’re in the middle of the mess.

When we don’t see what God’s doing.

When we don’t know how long it’ll last.

When we don’t know how we’ll get through it.

But why is this God’s will?

Giving thanks in the storm makes us humble and crushes our pride.  It keeps us from allowing bitterness and resentment to settle in, creating a Grand Canyon-sized gap between us and God.  It keeps those vital communication lines open and that allows for His peace to flow into our hearts.  It keeps us following Him, allowing Him to do the good He desires to do with those circumstances instead of going through them with no fruit at the end.

It’s no coincidence that God tells us “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  Philippians 4:6

Continually placing all circumstances in the Lord’s hands gives us His peace and assurance, and naturally – or more accurately, supernaturally – the thankful heart will come, and we can confidently go through any circumstance with hope and the joy of the Lord. 

Once we’ve walked with the Lord a while, and I don’t just mean knowing who He is, or going to church on Sundays, but really walk with Him, day by day, circumstance by circumstance, conversation to conversation, we’ll see more and more that He is a Father we can trust.  We can rest assured that He is with us no matter how far down in the pit we are, no matter how bleak the circumstances feel.

Remember, Jesus knows what it’s like.

For the One who gave His life for us, we live a life of worship, and all great acts of worship start with the first one – a thankful heart that’s trusting our Father’s goodness and grace to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.