Years ago we were going through something and my husband was talking to his mom about it. Her response to him was, “Well, isn’t that what your faith is for?” And of course she was exactly right.
There are times when trials come and our faith has the opportunity to be exercised.
Not long before Jesus was going to leave His friends and this world, He told them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)
He knew their lives would not be easy. Their world would be filled with suffering and danger and persecution and they could be tempted to fall back into their human emotions of fear and anxiety.
Of course we’re no different today.
Emotions can be contagious, and if we’re not careful we can get caught up in the world’s anxiety.
But Paul reminded us to “…not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:6-7)
The word “peace” that Paul talks about is the same word Jesus used when He told His friends He was leaving them His peace. It means one, quietness, rest, set at one again,” and comes from a verb (an action word!) meaning to join.
As we join our hearts, spirits, and minds to the Lord in prayer, He will quiet our souls and give us rest. He will fill us with not just any peace, but His peace.
Jesus said His peace would be different than the world’s. The world can only have peace (maybe) when there is no trial, no suffering, when everything in life seems good.
But Jesus’ peace isn’t dependent on outward circumstances; it comes from within. Just as Jesus promised to send His friends the Comforter, He has filled us with His Holy Spirit so we can live in His peace no matter what’s going on, even if our flesh and the world wonders why we aren’t panicked. We are gifted with His Spirit and can have His peace even when it makes no sense at all.
We don’t have to be anxious. As we take everything that concerns us to our loving and compassionate Heavenly Father, He will exchange our anxiety for His peace.
And as we’re filled with His peace, the light of Christ shines through us, and nowhere does the light of Christ shine more than in the darkness.
While the world panics, we can pray to the One who knows all things and controls all things. We can stop, pray, let the Lord quiet our souls from within, and be a beacon of Christ’s love and peace in the midst of trials and in the face of the unknown.
And who knows just how many might see Christ shining through us, and ask us why we have such peace.
Who knows what God may do in answer to years of prayers for revival, as we determine to live with the peace of God in our hearts and our lives.
I think about Jesus’ friends and all they went through all the way up to their deaths as they proclaimed Christ, spreading the gospel throughout the world, and I wonder how many times His words filled their hearts and minds and comforted them. We are their brothers and sisters when we do the same.
Take it from 6-year-old Cameron Brundidge:
“But God did not give me a spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)
Amen, sweetie.
My son Brandon has crippling fear cause of his #autism. His sister taught him a scripture she learned at @FellowshipMiss2 Church to help. Stop letting your fear of #Coronavirus be bigger than your faith in God. Plead The Blood, pray and wash your hands. Amen! pic.twitter.com/R2nnSDo3EA
— SHELETTA (@ShelettaIsFunny) March 13, 2020
Oh Almighty God, Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, we come to you and ask that you fill us with your peace that surpasses all understanding. Help us walk in the Spirit and not in our flesh. Help us think about things that are true, and noble, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable, and excellent, and praiseworthy… Keep reminding us to pray for one another, and to pray that the world will take notice of the love and peace we have, and remember that we are also people who have put our faith in you, and we pray you would draw people to you through our faith. Help us to be a light right now, Lord. We pray you would give us the words to tell anyone who asks about the reason for our hope. May you pour out your Spirit on all people, and bring revival to our weary world. In Jesus’ holy and precious name, amen.
I am so blessed to be able to sit in church on Sunday and worship the Lord with some beautifully composed music and be fed by pastors who love the Lord greatly and study hard to bring us Bible-based sound teaching. During the week there’s a Bible study and home groups. My social media page is full of pastors and messages that remind me about God’s truths. I have at least 15 Bibles in several translations, and more faith-based books than I will probably ever be able to finish. On the internet I have access to teachings from some of the most gifted pastors and teachers from all over the world, countless commentaries, uplifting Christian music…
And I wonder how many other people are doing the very same thing Sunday after Sunday, week after week.
We are deluged with messages from and for believers of every type, for every situation, every level of faith, and every age.
So why does the church, at least here in America, seem more anemic and ineffective than ever?
Why do we live our lives largely indistinguishable from the world?
Why do we get up in the morning and still feel like we’re being sucked under the trials of life, wondering where the joy is we’re supposed to be experiencing? Why we’re not feeling like an overcomer? Why we aren’t living that life Jesus talked about when He said:
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly”
(John 10:10)
That question has a lot of answers, but I want to tackle just one right now. Could it be the thief is still working hard to steal, kill, and destroy as much of that abundant life as he can, and maybe he’s using busyness, even “Christian” busyness, to do it?
Could it be that we have so much all around us that we are kidding ourselves into thinking we’re living a Christian life that would lead to abundance without really living it?
Maybe all the doing – sitting in a seat on Sundays, singing along, having a Bible (and maybe even opening up from time to time), maybe listening to a Christian song every now and then or even reading a faith-based book, is causing us to think we’re accomplishing something.
But maybe all it’s become, if done in the flesh, in our own strength, is nothing more than a rote religion, or just another sort of self-help.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…”
(Galatians 5:22)
Jesus came to give us life, and when He went back to the Father He gave us His Holy Spirit to bring about the abundant life we desire and Christ died to give us.
All those things – the teachings, the worship (the music is not a warm-up concert for the pastor!), the studies, the reading, are all meant to draw us closer to Jesus as we walk through them with the Holy Spirit. He is the power in our lives. He will bring about the abundant life we all so desperately want.
We’re on a journey with Him to know God and love Him more, to grow in faith, not to just put in our time on Sunday morning. Walking with Him is not just part of our life, it IS our life.
God desires to do so much in our hearts, our minds, and in and through our lives, and He wants us to partner with Him – to seek Him, to know Him, to love Him – as we do those things.
Do we pray before going to church, asking and fully expecting to hear from God, to receive from Him what He wants to say to us? Do we use the time we sing together to truly worship the Lord, to enter into the throne room of God and praise and exalt Him and let Him prepare our hearts for His message? Do we pray for our pastors during the week, that He will speak to them as they prepare the teaching, and that He will speak through them on Sunday morning? Do we pray before reading God’s Word or other books, or before listening to teachings online?
Do we pray without ceasing, inviting the Holy Spirit to speak to us and change us through those things?
Are we, the branches, clinging to the Vine, allowing Him to use all those things as nourishment for our souls, bringing its fruit in His time?
What all those things are meant to do, what they should do, is draw us closer to Jesus, reminding us of His love and grace and mercy so that we will continue reaching out to Him, reading and studying His Word and praying, inviting Him into every aspect of our lives. Inviting Him to leave no sin-stone unturned in the sanctifying of our souls. Inviting Him into every bit of suffering, every attitude, every decision, every joy.
Oh Church, we must leave the dead religion behind and get back to a living, breathing relationship with the One who died to bring us abundant life – to mold us into His image, to bring about the godly treasures we could never find in the world if we looked forever, and to be a light to the world.
Can you imagine if we invited the power of God into our lives every single day? If we let the Holy Spirit continually have His way in and through us?
If He changed the world with 12 men, what could He do with a nation full of Spirit-filled, God-fearing, mercy-loving believers?
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
(Ephesians 3:20-21)
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Heavenly Father, thank you for not only giving us your Holy Spirit to be with us, but to indwell us. He is an amazing gift and we are so grateful. Help us to always walk in the Spirit, to breathe and live and grow and speak in the Spirit. Help us to cling to you through Him so that He might produce the fruit and gifts in our hearts and lives that you desire so that we, as your church, your kingdom, can be effective witnesses and bright lights to the world around us that’s so dark and seems to get darker every day. Help us to have wisdom and discernment to know how to live in this world, but not to be of it. Help us to glorify and magnify the name of Jesus. It’s in His precious name we pray, amen.
Ah, the enemy. he may be stupid, but he’s relentless.
I’ve found one of the most dangerous times for a believer is right after God gives us a victory. He brings us through a hard fought battle and we might be tempted to celebrate, sit down, and relax. But satan knows that, and he’s not about to let us off the hook that easy. he’ll try coming at us again and again.
Maybe God’s given us the ability to forgive someone. The next day, and the next and the next, the enemy will try dragging us back into the mess and remind us of the way that person hurt us, filling our minds with things like “shouldn’t you have the right to be angry…”
Maybe God’s filled us with a godly contentment with our circumstances…“but you could’ve been doing that…”
And so it goes.
God reminds us though, that we can choose what to think, and that in Christ we have the power to “…take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5b
I call it clotheslining satan.
“shouldn’t you have the right to be angry…”
I stick out my arm (figuratively, of course), and in my head (or maybe out loud if nobody’s around) I immediately yell “NOPE!” Clotheslined. Stopped.
“but you could’ve been doing that…” “NOPE!”
“but what about what that person…” “NOPE!”
“but…” “NOPE!”
I don’t entertain the thought. I simply say no to his lies and stop the enemy right in his tracks.
I’ve taken my thought captive and made it obedient to Christ – to His victory for me, to His love for me, to His grace and mercy toward me, to walking in the abundant life He’s given me.
I don’t have to allow myself to be pulled back into the pit, back into unforgiveness, back into anger, back into discontentment… I can keep walking in the Spirit and remember that “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” John 8:36
“Heavenly Father, thank you for the victorious life you’ve given us through your Son, Jesus. Thank you for giving us a sound mind and for equipping us with the tools to fight the enemy. And thank you for your joy, and for humor. We praise you, and we pray it all in the name of Jesus Christ, our Victor, amen.”
Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you, and we thank you for all you’ve blessed us with. Forgive us for the times we take those blessings for granted, and we ask that you would remind us often to be grateful to you for pouring out onto us more blessing, more freedom, more love and grace than we can imagine. I pray our gratitude will lead us to be a fountain of that love, grace, and mercy that you’ve so generously given to us.
Lord, we lift up our brothers and sisters around the world who are being persecuted for their faith, those who are in prison, who are being tortured, who are separated from their families. Father, in Jesus’ name I pray you would fill them with your Holy Spirit and your might so that all you desire to accomplish in and through them will be done. May you do miraculous things, things that only you can do.
Lord, please fill them with your peace that passes all understanding; fill them with your strength to go on from one hour to the next; fill them with your love and forgiveness so that their hearts don’t become hardened or bitter; fill them with your joy so they are a light to those around them; fill them with boldness to continue proclaiming the gospel and the name of Christ; fill them with hope as they remember their great reward is with you.
May they feel your presence with them, and may you, in the mighty name of Jesus, bind the hand of the enemy. May our brothers and sisters continue to trust you, put their faith in you, and may they see, even if only a little bit, the fruit of their labor. And may we always remember them in our prayers, and honor them with our lives, boldly and freely proclaiming the gospel and the name of Jesus Christ. It’s in His precious and matchless name I pray, amen.
