Tag Archives: peace

March 11, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Get Some Rest

  
With Spring Break coming up, the vacation season will begin. Vacations are meant to be a time of rest and recharging, but how many times do we come back from vacation tired? We typically say, “I need a vacation after my vacation.” It’s good to do things on vacation, but not at the expense of giving your body and mind the rest it needs to recharge. There has to be some balance. We weren’t made to go, go, go 24/7/365.

Even God took a day of rest after creating the universe and everything in it. He understands the importance of rest. In fact, He mandated that we take time to rest. It’s in the Ten Commandments after all. Throughout the Bible, we are encouraged to find rest. God knows we are unable to fulfill our calling and our responsibilities when we are burned out.

To help remind us to get some rest, here are some verses in the Bible concerning it.

1. God has told his people, “Here is a place of rest; let the weary rest here. This is a place of quiet rest.” But they would not listen.

Isaiah 28:12 NLT

2. Work six days and rest the seventh. Stop working even during plowing and harvesting.

Exodus 34:21 MSG

3. Now, God has offered us the promise that we may receive that rest he spoke about. Let us take care, then, that none of you will be found to have failed to receive that promised rest.

Hebrews 4:1 GNT

4. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

Psalm 116:7 AMP

5. The LORD is my shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.

Psalms 23:1-3 NLT

6. There were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his disciples didn’t even have time to eat. So he said to them, “Let us go off by ourselves to some place where we will be alone and you can rest a while.”

Mark 6:31 GNT

7. It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.

Psalms 127:2 NLT

8. Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for Him and patiently lean yourself upon Him; fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass.

Psalm 37:7 AMP

9. As it is, however, there still remains for God’s people a rest like God’s resting on the seventh day.

Hebrews 4:9 GNT

10. Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

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February 2, 2016 · 5:30 AM

A Humble Heart

  
James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor” (NLT). When James wrote these words, he had read all the stories in the Old Testament and knew how God operates. God has always had a special place for those who have a humble heart. Take Moses for example. He was raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, yet somehow he was a humble person. He didn’t think of himself as being above the Israelite slaves.

When God asked him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses’ response was very telling. In Exodus 3:11, Moses protested, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?” He was so humble, he didn’t jump on the opportunity to lead his people to freedom. He didn’t ask what was in it for him. He didn’t ask God for a signing bonus. Instead, he didn’t think he was worthy of the task and asked God why would He choose him.

God looks for people who are humble to use for some of His greatest work. He knows that the more humble the heart, the less chance for pride to interfere. Humility seeks God’s will while pride seeks its own. One way to humble yourself is to have a realistic look at your talents and to compare them to the task God has for you. Very quickly, a humble person will realize they don’t have what it takes and will ask what Moses did: “Who am I?”

When we are humble enough to to know we are incapable of doing great things on our own, then we are in just the right mindset to be lifted up by God. James 4:6 tells us that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. That grace He gives is what gives us the sufficiency to accomplish His will. That grace keeps our pride in check and our heart in line with His. If we will learn to be humble like Moses, God will lift us up and honor us by helping us accomplish things we could never do on our own.

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February 1, 2016 · 5:30 AM

Strength And Peace

  
There are two things I find I need most often: strength and peace. There have been so many times I cry out to God, “I can’t do this on my own anymore. I don’t have the strength to go any further.” I always wonder if God gets impatient with me in those times. I wonder if he says, “Again? When will you learn?” I know that the joy of the Lord is my strength, but I somehow allow my situation to steal that joy which leaves me weak and vulnerable.

David must have felt this way pretty often as well. When I read the Psalms, they don’t always line up with this bad to the bone warrior I’ve built up in my mind. They often show an insecure person who struggles with his situations. It’s in conflict with the mental image I have of him, but the truth is, they show someone just as human as the rest of us. They show an accomplished person who loves God, but still relies on Him for everything.

I like being a self sufficient person. I like not needing to have to have help, but those are not qualities God admires. David was known as a man after God’s own heart. He was a man who wasn’t afraid to cry out to God for help all the time. The things that I think make him appear weak are the things God finds as strengths. We were not made to fight our battles on our own. We were not made to fight alone. We were not made to be self sufficient. We are to find our strength and sufficiency in Him.

In Psalm 29, David talks about how powerful the voice of the Lord is. He writes great acclamations of God, and then he finishes with a truth that is very relevant to us. In verse 11 he says, “The LORD gives his people strength. The LORD blesses them with peace” (NLT). Strength and peace are gifts from God. To act like we don’t need them is to deny God from giving them to us as blessings. David had it right. We need God’s strength and peace more than we care to admit. If we are willing to get over our pride and to ask Him for them, He is willing to give them to us.

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October 29, 2015 · 5:30 AM

Peace Through Trust

  
Life is unpredictable. It’s full of uncertainties, crossroads, and unknowns. When we are facing these things in life, our minds get consumed looking for answers and wondering what tomorrow holds. It can suck the energy right out of you if you let it. I think that’s why Jesus told us in Matthew 6:34, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries” (NLT). He knew that with all of life’s uncertainties, we could easily get wrapped up in all the what if’s of life.

The truth is that even though you and I don’t know what tomorrow holds, God does. And He’s not worried. What is unknown to us is history to Him. He knows how it all plays out and He is in control. No matter what each day brings, we can trust that He has a plan for our lives and a path for us to walk down. Psalm 37:23 says, “The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” Not only does He direct our lives, He knows all the details that are unknown to us.

Trusting Him in those times is paramount to our peace of mind. Where worry consumes us, His peace frees us. We get peace in uncertainty when we trust that God is in control, that He has a plan for this time, and that He is directing our path. Stress and worry come from thinking we are in control, that God doesn’t care, or that He doesn’t have a plan. He gives you and I the ability to choose in this situation. Do we want to stress or do we want peace through trust?

I’m reminded of Proverbs 3:5-6 when it comes to trusting God in uncertainty. It says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way” (GNB). The word “trust”, in the original language, means to feel safe, be careless. In our most difficult times, we can feel safe and be carefree by trusting God. He will direct our path and show us the right way when the time is right. 

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September 28, 2015 · 5:28 AM

Quiet Place Of Peace

  
Have you ever found yourself looking for a quiet place to get away from it all? In today’s connected world, it’s hard to find a quiet place. We are besieged by emails, texts, and phone calls. Social media calls to us constantly begging for our attention. Our jobs hunt us down after hours to find solutions and our families deserve our time as well. It can be hard to find that place where we find peace among the craziness of life, but it does exist.

David looked for it as well. He didn’t have a cell phone ringing or a boss demanding over time. He had people who were hunting him down to kill him. He lived a lot of his life on the run. He was either being chased or was chasing someone. On top of that, add in that he was running a country. He was a very busy person, yet he longed for that quiet place of peace as well. He wanted a place where he could just rest.

In Psalm 27:3, he describes a little bit of his situation and how it makes him feel. He wrote, “When besieged, I’m calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I’m collected and cool” (MSG). For most of us, we can’t identify with those statements. When we are besieged by our todo list, we are not calm as a baby. We are stressed. When everything seems to come apart at once, we aren’t cool and collected. We become frantic at the situation with no solution. How could David be this way in those situations? He found his quiet place of peace.

In the next few verses, David writes, “I’m asking GOD for one thing, only one thing: To live with him in his house my whole life long. I’ll contemplate his beauty; I’ll study at his feet. That’s the only quiet, secure place in a noisy world, The perfect getaway, far from the buzz of traffic.” He knew that prayer was essential in finding that peace in the storm of life. When we pray, we acknowledge God is in control, even when we aren’t.

He also mentioned meditating on God’s beauty was as well. It’s not enough to just pray. We have to keep our mind on God throughout the day in order to stay in that place. The other thing he did was to study at God’s feet. He made the time to study God’s Word. Knowing what God says and understanding how it applies to your life is critical in finding that place of peace. Stress comes from not being able to balance everything on our plate and losing control of our life. Peace comes from knowing God is in control and then leaving the outcome to Him.

David ends this Psalm with the a way to find confidence in God that comes from the faith that knows God is in control of your life. “I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness in the exuberant earth. Stay with GOD! Take heart. Don’t quit. I’ll say it again: Stay with GOD.” He gives himself a reminder in the chaos. He wants his mind to stay with God instead of wandering away to all the what if’s. He also reminds himself not to quit or give up. He knows that if we stick with God in every situation, we will find that quiet place of peace.

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August 11, 2015 · 6:55 AM

Grace, Mercy And Peace

I was speaking to someone recently about the old computer operating system DOS. I remember as a kid learning how to write programs for DOS. We were taught to increase each command line by 10 so if you needed to add a line of programming later, you had the room. Another thing they taught us is the phrase, “If this, then that.” It was a way to tell the computer if the user does this, then I want you to skip to another line and run the program from there. It was all about cause and consequence. 

The Bible is full of “if this, then that” type phrases. In John 15:7 Jesus said, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you then you can ask whatever you will.” II Chronicles 7:14, “If my people will humble themselves and pray…, then I will hear from Heaven and heal their land.” These are just a couple of examples. God puts conditions on many promises that require an action on our part first in order to activate them just like in the old DOS programming. If we don’t do the first part, then the next part is skipped.

Another conditional promise is found in II John 1:3. It says, “Grace, mercy and peace, which come from God the Father and from Jesus Christ – the Son of the Father – will continue to be with us who live in truth and love. (NLT)” If we will continue to live in truth and love we will receive grace, mercy and peace. Grace is God’s unmerited favor which affords joy, delight and pleasure according to the Blue Letter Bible. The favor of God alone is enough, but John added in through his use of the word grace that we would also get joy, delight and pleasure by living in truth and love.

Next, he said we would get mercy. One of the definitions of mercy is to have the providence of God. That means that God will order your steps and guide your future. He won’t just let you wander. Your life will be filled with purpose which leads to the last promise of peace. When we live in love and truth, we will also get peace in our hearts, our minds and our lives. That includes peace with others. We will be someone who gets along with others and doesn’t have to carry the weight of stressful relationships because there’s no peace between you. God wants to give us these three blessings if we will simply live in truth and love.

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November 11, 2014 · 6:00 AM

The Prayers Of Paul

Paul lived an incredible life. He went from an aggressive persecutor of the church to an aggressive follower of Jesus Christ. He was shipwrecked three times, bitten by a venomous snake, stoned and left for dead, deathly ill for over a year, imprisoned and eventually beheaded. Yet he would write two thirds of the New Testament and stay firmly fixed on his calling to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul was probably able to do all this because of his strong prayer life. Each of his letters to the churches are filled with him praying for them and asking for very focused prayers for himself. His recorded prayers are not long but they are powerful. Paul is very consistent with his prayers through each Epistle and Ephesians provides us with a great example.

When you have a chance I suggest that you start by reading Ephesians 1:1-23. Paul begins in verse two by praying a blessing of grace and peace over the church. (This was a standard greeting of the day and used by other Apostles). Grace and Peace are such powerful words. When you actually look at the original Greek, you see that Paul prayed for the Ephesians to be “lavished” with Grace and Peace. If you think about it, when you have God’s grace and His peace, what else do you really need? His grace is given to you freely. You don’t have to work for it and you don’t need to be good to earn it. His peace is complete; it is greater than our circumstances. Our circumstances may be difficult at times but His peace will see us through every time. It is a peace that invades our thoughts and emotions.

Paul then uses verses 3-14 to praise God and remind the Ephesians of the good things they have received from God. When life is hard, it is easy to forget the blessings that God has lavished upon us. Paul reminded them (and now reminds us) of how we have been adopted by God and how we are redeemed by the blood of Jesus. It is so easy to forget all of the good things that God has done for us. Paul wanted to be sure they never forgot the gift of the Holy Spirit and that we are counted as God’s very own possession. On a regular basis it is important to write down how God has blessed your life. When did He show up when you thought you had no hope? Then weave into your prayers those events along with Paul’s reminders.

In verses 15-23 Paul begins to thank God for the Ephesians and prays that they will receive God’s wisdom and revelation and that they would know Him better. Paul makes sure they know that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is working in their own lives and that same power works in our life.

At the end of Ephesians, Paul asks for the church to pray for him. When he wrote this Epistle he was in prison. One would think he would ask them to pray for him to be set free. However, Paul saw beyond his current circumstances to something greater. He asked them to pray that he would preach with boldness. In Ephesians 6:19 he asks that he could speak “fearlessly” (NIV). He is in prison, in chains and all he asks for is the ability to preach fearlessly.

Let’s break it down to the few key points of Paul’s prayer:

1. Pray for the Grace and Peace of God to be lavished on you, your family and for others.
2. When you pray take time to remember the work of salvation and remember the specific blessings God has worked in your life.
3. Pray for yourself and others that you may know God in an ever deeper and richer way.
4. Pray beyond your circumstances. God is madly and passionately in love with you. He cares about your needs but something happens when we focus our prayers on a greater cause, a cause where you will live out his perfect and good will. If we have God’s grace and peace and pray beyond our circumstances, I am sure God will meet our needs in the right way.

These thoughts are not intended to be the only way we pray. My hope is that they will become a starting place so that your prayer life will grow richer and more effective.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the prayers of Paul. What other key elements stand out to you?

Jon Stallings is a bi-vocational pastor and blogger from Stockbridge GA. He is co-pastor, along with his wife Janice, of Life Church in Conyers Ga. He also works for a technology company in Atlanta. Jon is passionate about helping others live out their own God given calling. He blogs about faith, leadership and life at www.jonstallings.com. You can also connect with him on twitter @jonstallings

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October 8, 2014 · 7:38 AM

The Hardest Thing To Do

One of the hardest things for us to do is to forgive someone who has wronged us. It’s also one of the most liberating things to do. The Bible is full of examples of people who forgave, people who didn’t and why we should. That doesn’t change the fact that it is difficult to do when it comes down to it. Letting go of a wrong seems unnatural. It seems like if I am wronged, I should hold it over their heads forever because of the pain they inflicted. The problem with that is that it becomes all we think about and we become bitter.

We’ve all prayed “The Lord’s Prayer”. We know the line that says, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” We’ve prayed that line in the King James Version all of our lives, but have we really meant it or understood it. The Amplified Version uses these words to enhance the word forgive: left, remitted, let go of the debts and have given up resentment against (our debtors). The last thing Jesus said there was that we were to give up the resentment we hold against those who have trespassed against us.

Immediately after saying amen in the prayer, Jesus started talking about the forgiveness He mentioned in the prayer. He knew that the rest of the prayer was relatively easy to say and live by. He understood that the one part of the prayer that was our responsibility was the hardest to swallow. So He attacked it straight on before anyone could speak. The Message writes it best. Jesus said in Matthew 6:14-15, “In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.”

He put every bit of that on us. We can’t get forgiveness unless we forgive. We have the option to grant or refuse forgiveness. We just have to understand that when we refuse it, we are also refusing God’s forgiveness for our sins. That’s a bold way to approach the subject of forgiveness and how important it is to God. He used a gentler approach in a parable where a man owed a huge debt. He was thrown in prison for the rest of his life because he couldn’t pay it. He threw himself at the kings mercy and was granted forgiveness. He walked out of the prison and went to a guy who owed him a couple of dollars, and threw him in prison for not paying it.

When the man begged for mercy just like he had done with the King, he refused it. When the King heard that the same man who had been forgiven was treating someone else so poorly, he ordered that he be thrown into prison too. If he couldn’t show the same compassion and forgiveness he had received, he wasn’t worthy of it. Jesus again underscored the importance of us forgiving others and linked it to God forgiving us. We must let go of the resentment we’ve been holding onto in order to not cut ourselves off from God’s forgiveness. When you truly let it go, it will be one of the most liberating experiences of your life.

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September 18, 2014 · 7:42 AM

10 Scriptures About Peace

1. Turn your back on sin; do something good. Embrace peace—don’t let it get away! (Psalm 34:14 MSG)

2. If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. (Romans 12:18 AMP)

3. I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27 NLT)

4. Now may the Lord of peace himself give you his peace at all times and in every situation. The Lord be with you all. (2 Thessalonians 3:16 NLT)

5. May the God of peace be with you all. Amen. (Romans 15:33 ESV)

Let grace, mercy, and peace be with us in truth and love from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, Son of the Father! (2 John 1:3 MSG)

6. You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You. (Isaiah 26:3 AMP)

7. GOD makes his people strong. GOD gives his people peace. (Psalm 29:11 MSG)

8. I listen carefully to what God the LORD is saying, for he speaks peace to his faithful people. But let them not return to their foolish ways. (Psalms 85:8 NLT)

9. Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79 NLT)

10. For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (‭Isaiah‬ ‭9‬:‭6‬ NKJV)

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September 12, 2014 · 5:19 AM

God’s Megaphone

“Pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures , speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

C.S. Lewis

Have you ever had pain so badly that it throbbed? I’ve hit my thumb with a hammer before and it felt like my thumb was going to explode. The pain in my thumb was sending signals to my brain, “I’m hurt! Help me!” I held it, sucked on it and then put ice on it until it quit hurting. Whenever I grabbed something for the next few days, I would remember that I hit it because the pain was still deep inside. Eventually it went away and I forgot that my thumb had ever been hit.

When we go through pain and suffering in our lives, it’s a lot like that. Our pain signals us to call out to God, “I’m hurt! Help me!” He then comes to us and helps us in our pain. He speaks to us in those times and shows us things in His Word that we’ve never seen or understood until we were in that kind of pain. As time goes on, the pain goes away and so often, our dependence on God.

When times are good, we tend to forget God. We have no need of Him if we really don’t know Him. He is kind of our 9-1-1 call when we are in trouble. He’s always available, but we don’t call Him until we need Him. When we do call in those times, He does respond, but He wants to be more than your go to guy for an emergency. He wants to be the one you go to in the good times as well. He’s speaking to us in those times as well, but we don’t hear Him because we are too busy enjoying life.

Bad things happen from time to time so that He can renew our relationship. Every time the children of Israel forgot God, He would send the prophets to remind them and to draw them back. When they wouldn’t listen, He would allow them to be taken to captivity until they remembered hat God said in Leviticus 26:3-13. He said if they would listen to Him and obey He would pour out all kinds of blessings on them. He spent the rest of the chapter letting them know that if they forgot Him, He would use pain and calamity to draw them back.

If things are rough in your life right now, chances are that God is shouting to you. He could be trying to get your attention to speak to you. I’m not saying you’ve done something wrong in your life, but maybe God is trying to get your attention. Instead of running from the pain, try stopping, calling out to God for help and then listening. There are things He wants to say to us all the time, but we’re usually not listening until pain is involved. Take time today to listen.

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