DO THESE THINGS (PART 4)

Can I pray for you in any way?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

...live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

2 Corinthians 13:11 GNT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

"Peace on earth and goodwill toward men.”

It’s one of my favorite wishes found in the Christmas song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. It’s prominent in the song because it is the last phrase sung at the end of every stanza and it should be that way because they were words spoken by the angel that appeared with a multitude of the heavenly host announcing Jesus’ birth to the shepherds who were minding their flocks by night (Luke 2:8-20).

This matter of wishing for peace on earth was not just central to the angels but to the Apostle Paul as well. We see so in his fourth of five exhortations that closeout his second letter to the Corinthian church. Specifically, he says this:

...live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. 13:11 GNT

Live in peace.

This isn’t just an encouragement by Paul but a wish that I think every person has. I know I find myself yearning on a regular basis for peace to come into my life and the world I live in.

Peace within family.

Peace within my community.

Peace within my nation and peace in the world.

Unfortunately, peace seems to be in short supply these days. Turmoil and strife seem more to be the order of the day.

So how do we change this? How do we get to a place where we can live with one another in peace?

The answer is found in our Lord, the only One who can bring us peace, the “God of love and peace”.

How do we find this real peace that comes exclusively from God?

Paul tells us in these two verses from the fourth chapter of his letter to the Philippians:

Do 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 transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Vv. 6-7

Here we see the key to peace. It involves bringing everything that would serve to interfere with peace before the God who can actually take care of it. We present all our struggles and strifes, all the chaos and mayhem, every concern or worry to God. We lay our burdens at the foot of His throne and trust Him to deal with them because they are greater than what we can do.

It’s been said that God wouldn’t give you a burden you couldn’t bear. I completely disagree with this train of thought because God regularly allows us to have troubles that we can’t handle on our own. He does this so we don’t become self reliant and direct our faith toward ourselves instead of Him.

Do you want peace in your life?

Turn to God and surrender all your anxieties and fears, all your resentments and anguish, all your hardships and difficulties. For it’s only when you unload these things off of yourself and onto the God who wants to handle them for you that you will experience the transcendent peace of God, the peace that surpasses human understanding.

Friends, this is the peace Paul wished for the believers in the church in Corinth and it’s the peace our Lord wants for us to have today. Living in peace is possible but we need to allow the God of peace to bring it to us and only when every single Christian believer allows this peace to come to them will we find the church at peace, a church that then can show the world that peace is not only possible but easily attainable through faith and trust in the God of all creation, the Maker and Master of everything, the Lord who can bring us to a place of peace on earth and goodwill toward man.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com