You give me peace……

Hi friends!

What a week its been! I came out of our annual church

conference! It was amazing!! It started on Wednesday and

finished yesterday. It has also been a busy week. It’s always

busy for everyone at this time. There is so much work to do.

So last week in my busyness I was asked a question that has

haunted me till now. This is what was asked,

 

“Why do you get stressed so easily?”

 

I was running around like a headless chicken prior to the

question being asked. After he left I couldn’t shake the

question. I tried to defend myself to myself and even

justify myself but he was right, I do get stressed easily.

Shucks!!

I want to be that person who stays calm when everything

is falling. I just want to be calm!

That got me thinking about peace……Can I be at peace when

everything is

going wrong? Can I be at peace when the mountains shake?

That is when God gave me a scripture that helped me that

I hope will help you!

 

Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give you and

bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. 

Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither

let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated

and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful

and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]

John 14:27

 

I was thinking about the peace the world gives versus the peace

Jesus gives. The peace the world gives focuses on the external.

No war means peace, living in harmony, avoiding confrontation is

seen as keeping the peace.

Then there is meditation, clear your minds they tell us.

So as you can see, the world’s peace is very different.

The main thing to keep in mind about the peace the world

offers is that it doesn’t have Jesus as it’s source and a peace

without Jesus at it’s core is not peace at all!

Without Jesus you will never have peace!

 

The peace that Jesus offers is inward focused. When everything

is collapsing around us, the peace Jesus gives us keeps us steady.

When it looks like the enemy is going to win His peace gives us

hope that things will turn around.

The peace Jesus gives us is dependant on Him!

When we know He is in control, we have peace!

 

So I was challenged to stop stressing so much. The word is

very clear, we must not allow our hearts to be troubled,

we must stop allowing ourselves to be agitated and disturbed,

We must not permit ourselves to be fearful, intimidated

and cowardly in the face of danger, pressure, and so on…..

It’s a decsion to be at peace!

 

This is not just about me having peace at work but this post

is about having peace in hard times. It’s about having peace

when there is so much fear in the world. When my friend asked

me that question I realized later on that, God wants me to walk

in peace, period! Being agitated, stressed and anxious is not from

Him. As I end I would like to share one more story with you from

the word.

 

“And when Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the Lord,

Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the Angel

of the Lord face to face!

The Lord said to him, peace be to you, do not fear;

you shall not die.

Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it,

The Lord is Peace.

To this day it still stands in Ophrah, which belongs to the

Abiezrites.

Judges 6:22-24

 

Gideon’s fear was real. He thought he would die because he

saw the face of God but God told him not to fear. I think

something more happened when those words were spoken.

I think Gideon saw or felt something, something that had

to be told to the generations to come! What ever he saw or felt

compelled him to build an altar and name it, The Lord is Peace

(Jehovah Shalom)!!!

I want to walk in that peace everyday, the peace Jesus gives!!

 

Whatever trouble you are going through remember,

to not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,

stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed, and do

not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated, cowardly

and unsettled!

He is our Peace! Things may be falling apart around us but

we are at peace because He is with us holding us up!

Amen….

 

Rolain

 

 

 

 

 

 

The truth about sin…..

What does God see when He looks at us? Does He see our sin, faults and failures? The answer to that question is found in the post you

are reading. It’s just one of the ways God sees us.  Let’s look at the scripture below,

That they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but might keep His commandments
And might not be as their fathers – a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their hearts aright

nor prepared their hearts to know God, and whose spirits were not steadfast and faithful to God.
Psalm 78:7, 8

They kept not the covenant of God and refused to walk according to His law
And forgot His works and His wonders that He had shown them.
Psalm 78:10, 11

Yet they still went on to sin against Him by provoking and rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness (in the land of drought).
And they tempted God in their hearts by asking for food according to their [selfish] desire and appetite.
Psalm 78:17, 18

But scarce had they stilled their craving, and while their meat was yet in their mouths,
The wrath of God came upon them and slew the strongest and sturdiest of them and smote down Israel’s chosen youth.
In spite of all this, they sinned still more, for they believed not in (relied not on and adhered not to Him for) His wondrous works.
Psalm 78:30-32

I will stop there but I think you get the picture. As you keep on reading the post I want you to think of yourselves in the Israelites shoes.

In actual fact we are very much like them. They consistently sinned against God and as you know, a whole generation except for

Joshua and Caleb never made it into the promise land! Psalm 78 gives us a very long description of how the Israelites disobeyed God.

It was sin after sin. It didn’t stop.

So in the midst of all the craziness how did He see His people? Did it change because of all their sin? Let us take a look at another

portion of scripture that will help us answer this question.

Then Balaam spoke his message-oracle:
Balak led me here from Aram, the king of Moab all the way from the eastern mountains.
“Go, curse Jacob for me; go, damn Israel.”
How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I damn whom God has not damned? Numbers 23:14

Then Balaam spoke his message-oracle:

On your feet, Balak. Listen, listen carefully son of Zippor; God is not man, one given to lies, 

and not a son of man changing His mind. 

Does He speak and not do what He says? Does He promise and not come through?

I was brought here to bless; and now he’s blessed – how can I change that? 

He has no bone to pick with Jacob, He sees nothing wrong with Israel. Numbers 23:17-24

Wait a minute! This all happened in the desert. This was during the time Israel were sinning blatantly.

They didn’t listen to God, they rejected Him, they asked for meat, they complained, grumbled, murmured

and a whole lot of other things and yet God speaking through Balaam said, “He has no bone to pick with Jacob,

He sees nothing wrong with Israel.”

This is the thing I want you to see about this story. No matter how much Israel sinned God never changed His view of them.

It didn’t change what He promised them. Yes, they were punished and yes they had to suffer the consequences of their sins

but God still loved them. He still had a plan for them. He still extended grace to them. He protected them from the plans of the enemy.

Balaam was called to curse them but couldn’t!

What does that mean for us? Could it be that God sees us the same way as He saw the Israelites?

Could it be, we have placed too much emphasis on our sin?

Could it be that God sees nothing wrong with us?

Could it be that sin is the least most important thing about us?

I will let you draw your own assumptions from the scriptures I have just shared. I believe there is hope. God will never abandon us.

He loves us and cares for us. He sees us as spotless and blameless. We are His children who He has extended His amazing grace to.

God bless.

Rolain