‘Who proclaim peace’ (Isaiah 52:7 NIV)
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Meditation and mindfulness are big things presently, with apps that promise to reduce your stress and help you have a better life; to help you stress less, and to reduce the pressure that you have in your life.
There are shops with rows and rows of shelves with books that promise to show you how to live a life with little or no stress, or books that say once you have read them you will understand how to live a calm, worry-free life.
These days, you can buy books, or get apps, or listen to music that promise to ‘soothe the soul’, release your stress, and generally make you feel better about yourself.
You can spend money ‘hand-over-fist’ to try to feel better this way, and you may actually end up feeling better, but how much will you spend to reach this point?
When you are weary with life, and burdened down with the problems of this world, sometimes it feels as though there is no way forward. Small problems become potential catastrophes, and your brain can feel as though it is under attack.
AARRGGGHHH! What can we do, where can we turn?
There is something that you can do to help you feel better, and it will cost you nothing! All it will take is a decision to want to change how you live;
‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened’ (Matthew 11:28 NIV – emphasis mine).
Jesus says that when life takes over, and everything seems to be getting out of control, there is a way to relieve that pressure, a way to de-stress your life, and that way, is;
‘Then come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis’ (Matthew 11:28 TPT).
So if we want a stress free life, Jesus is the answer, take all of your problems and put them at Jesus’ feet, and he promises that he will refresh our lives if we trust him and give our problems to him;
‘Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I am humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me’ (Matthew 11:29 TPT).
So for a stress-free life, a life full of peace, Jesus is the answer.
That is not to say that there will never be anything that you are concerned with; you may struggle financially, or you may lose your job; worry is something that most people have throughout their life, but you can still have peace, for Jesus promised to give us that peace;
‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you’ (John 14:27 NIV).
Even the Psalmist David knew of the Lord’s peace;
‘Now, because of you, Lord, I will lie down in peace’ (Psalm 4:8 TPT).
So throughout the Bible, the constant theme is of our Lord giving us peace into our life.
Even when the nations of Israel were rebelling against God, he offered them a chance for regaining peace in their lives;
‘Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make peace with me’ (Isaiah 27:5 NIV).
If we have sinned against God, and we all sin (Romans 3:23), there is always a path back to God, a way for us to recover.
‘I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security’ (Jeremiah 33:6 NIV).
So, we know that our lives are not perfect as they were initially meant to be, for at the beginning, God created a perfect world that he was very happy with;
‘God saw all that he had made, and it was very good’ (Genesis 1:31 NIV).
Since the world was created, sin entered that world, and it stopped working as it was meant to be (the fall – Genesis 3), that is why there is trouble and strife, and why we have stress and problems in our life.
But, we have a choice; that is how sin entered the world, because we were given a choice, live as God wanted us to, in harmony with the Creator, or make our own decisions and live how we want to, that is not in harmony with God and how the world was created.
A friend of mine knew someone when he was younger, who always had the same answer to whatever problem anyone had in life;
‘Jesus is the answer’ they would say.
That may sound very simplistic, but ultimately, it is correct.
Jesus is the answer if we want a life of peace, a life where we put all of our problems at his feet and try not to worry about them.
Trying not to worry about the issues we face, is sometimes very hard, and Jesus never promised a life without problems, but we have a choice, worry about them or give them away;
‘That is why I tell you to never be worried about your life, for all that you need will be provided’ (Matthew 6:25 TPT).
I have recently been reading the book ‘Unleashed – The Acts Church Today’. In it, Gavin Calver goes to a community in East Sussex called the ‘Bruderhof’ (https://www.bruderhof.com/en/where-we-are/united-kingdom/darvell?gclid=CjwKCAiAiML-BRAAEiwAuWVggn72ySD7mICj7ZG3VxDLwNADNL6hheJY_fXAbGUykTps1LvU5YeZPRoCNIEQAvD_BwE – accessed 09/12/2020) , and they are a radical Christian community that actually live the life as described in the book of Acts, they share everything, even vehicles are community owned, they sell their possessions and give the money to the community, (Unleashed – The Acts Church Today – Gavin & Anne Calver – Inter-Varsity Press – p47).
They truly are living in the peace of our Lord, true living examples of how to live in the peace of Jesus, in the way of Jesus.
We may all want that peace, but how much are we truly prepared to give or give-up, in order to have that peace. Obviously selling most of what we have, this may seem a little too far, but that is how the church started.
Sometimes we have to think how much we want to live like Jesus;
‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head’ (Matthew 8:20 NIV).
Are we trying to live like Jesus, with all of his teaching and his peace, or are we living a life of ‘us’.
What do we want in our life, chaos or peace? Me I choose Jesus’ peace;
‘as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord’ (Joshua 24:15 NIV).
I will try, but maybe not always succeed, to live in the Peace of Jesus, and I will also try, and sometime fail, to live like Jesus.
As the T-shirt said that WHAM wore for the 1984 single ‘Wake me up before you go go’ I am going to ‘Choose life’, choose the life of Jesus, with all that come with it, including ‘PEACE’.
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Behold the star of Bethlehem
The Word of God has become flesh
Unto us a child is born
The Saviour of this broken world
Oh, hear the angel voices
Sing come let us adore Him
Peace has come
For our King is with us
Fully God and fully man
He comes for all with open hands
He rules with love on David’s throne
All praise belongs to Christ alone
Oh, hear the angel voices
Sing come let us adore Him
Peace has come
For our King is with us
Holy, holy, holy
Jesus we adore Thee
Peace has come
For our King is with us
Oh, come let us adore Him
Oh, come let us adore Him
Oh, come let us adore Him
Christ the Lord
Oh, hear the angel voices
Sing come let us adore Him
Peace has come
For our King is with us
Peace has come
For our King is with us
Peace Has Come
Ben Fielding / Benjamin Hastings / Seth Simmons
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Father, we thank you for sending Jesus to this world, to give us the show us how to live a life in harmony with you, and to have a life with your peace available to us. Lord we often turn away and try things on our own, even though we know that we should not, and that it will not go well. Lord, help us to rely fully on you for all things, in all areas of our life.
Amen
Bobbles Stuff 