True Peace

"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Romans 8:6

Peace is the speech topic of so many world leaders and generally the aim of humanity. Represented by symbols and gestures recognized by people everywhere, this elusive ingredient to the recipe of happy existence seems, in our troubled and hectic world, harder than ever to find and harder still to maintain. Perhaps the problem is not going to be fixed on a world-wide basis, until it is fixed on a personal, individual level. Should peace truly reign in every person’s heart, then communal peace and peaceful co-existence would not be such a problem. The question then is how to get that peace in each individual’s heart and mind?! Is there an answer?

Martin Luther King is quoted as saying that “…peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice”.

The daily struggle of the human family is to gain and maintain life, with peace as its highest ideal. A peaceful life, content and free from the trauma and fear which characterizes our existence seems to be everyone's ultimate goal. To that end we work, strive and labour.  All kinds of compromises, many very poor, are made in an effort to ‘keep the peace’. In vain however, we reach for this desirable quality in life, if we strive in our own strength and by our own carnal values. The carnal mind is selfish, sensual and self-serving. It limits, obstructs and narrows the flow of life; by its very values, it destroys the very peace we all seek and will ultimately results in death. 

So many wrongly think that surrendering to the carnal mindset by adopting the trends and image of the world, following what everyone else is doing, being part of the crowd, and removing the tension of living a consecrated life for God, even at the cost of their soul, is where peace may be found. Some, when they first leave the ways of God and turn their backs on obedience to His principles, sense a momentary and false peace, a release of the tension. The conflict between the flesh and the Spirit ends and the pressure appears to leave them. This is not true peace - it is surrender to the enemy. The temporary relief is due to their laying down their spiritual weapons and ceasing the fight against the tyranny of the flesh. Deceived by this seemingly ‘positive’ result they tread down the path of self-destruction. Led by an illusion, which continues to appeal to their flesh, like the proverbial donkey after the carrot, they continue to travel away from God, only to find further down the road that nothing really satisfies, and not only they have no true, lasting peace, but worse that they have sold out the Prince of Peace and are now under the yoke and slavery of a merciless tyrant! No true peace exists there, only sorrow, degradation and ultimate death.

Man’s best efforts to bring about peace, through reforms, edicts, programs, therapy and a host of other schemes  continue to fail or at best produce a very poor facsimile - the equivalent of a plastic bauble rather than the real jewel of peace. The removing of God and His principles from humanity’s efforts can only spell ruin and compromise. Peace without the Giver of Peace is neither true, lasting nor altruistic. Peace which is not true peace, is a deception; peace which doesn’t last is self-defeating; peace which doesn’t reach out to touch and bless others is selfish and highly perishable!

Here then is the bible recipe and answer for all that the human heart desires. The message is clear, real peace cannot be obtained by means other than a godly, spiritual mind. True personal peace seems to be not the removal of life’s irritations and inconveniences, but the result of a stern judgment, a sentence brought against our fallen carnal nature for the death it delivers when we subscribe to its desires and promptings. Through the power of the Spirit of God, we must judge what we think and do by God’s standards, resist fleshly desires, and say NO to our carnal nature. This may not remove the tension in the short term, but it will in due course, allow a different mind to the fore, a mind guided and led by the Spirit of God and His word.  Spiritual mindedness is a surrender to God and His ways; It is thinking of and doing life from God’s perspective not our own; it is an embracing of the values that judge our fallen nature and free us from the bondage of the sin it fosters. The spiritual mind can reason in the spiritual realm, comprehend spiritual truth and make us spiritually liberated, set free! This is where true personal peace is found! The result of the spiritual mind is life and peace!

Jesus said : "...my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you...". This is the kind of peace worth having! God-initiated, preserved and eternal peace, is the kind of peace which is beyond all human understanding and yet is ours for the having through the Lord Jesus. Lifelong, God-less efforts to find true and lasting peace any other way will fail. However a person whose mind is connected to, settled in, obedient and practiced in the spiritual thoughts and principles of God, will experience the kind of abundant life, peace and contentment not found anywhere else or by any other means. Now that's true living!

See also:
http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/

http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

On a Special Diet

 "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." 
1 Peter 2:2-3

It was love from the start! I know this is how this father felt at the sight of each newborn God has added to this family. To see each of our babies come into the world, added unthinkable joy and thrill to us as parents, along with a deep sense of new-found responsibility and an overwhelming feeling of wanting to protect and provide. I guess this is the story of every loving couple who has been blessed with having children, and the follow up to that beginning, (as the same mums and dads have no doubt discovered), is that there is a whole lot more to raising children than there is to conceiving them! 

From the beginning of life outside the womb, the healthy baby seeks nutrition from mum. This is an intense desire and so strongly built into the human make up, that when it is not fulfilled on time or enough, there is a very clear message, an unmistakable outcry from that little person that solicits urgent action to fulfil the need! We have all smiled at the distinctive happy grin on baby’s face, when the tummy is full and contentment washes away the tears, easing the infant into blissful sleep!

The necessary nutrition and sustenance of food is not something babies measure, reason or can even plan, they just desire it! They crave it so much that it takes precedence over all other needs. A healthy baby needs little or no encouragement to consume a nutritious meal. Something God has written somewhere in our being, incites us to want this sustenance. This is not because as babies we know or understand the processes by which it works in our bodies, but simply because somehow we know we need it! Without it we cannot survive - and survival, growing, becoming stronger must be our first and greatest priority.

It should be the same on the spiritual plane, with us and God's word. The desire to receive, eat, be filled with and digest the word of God and pray should hold priority over all else. We may not fully comprehend how God make it all work within our spiritual person, but somehow we know it does. This makes prayerfully feeding on God’s Word our daily, necessary priority, vital to our spiritual survival. The indication in our text is that even as we grow in Christ, we should not lose the healthy appetite and desire for God and His word that we had as new born-again spiritual infants! The initial milk of God’s word and the more solid food which follows, is the necessary diet for our soul, for spiritual growth and well-being.

God has provided the most appropriate and nutritious fare for our souls by giving us His Word. Nothing should replace our desire to feed our minds, hearts and souls upon it. Sadly, as in our physical eating, our spiritually healthy diet is often replaced with ‘junk food’, which can never truly satisfy nor bring benefits in the long run. In fact it has the opposite effect. Feeding on the wrong things, results in spiritual health issues, the obesity of the flesh and other inner problems, all of which threaten the loss of our spiritual life in Jesus!

Peter reminds us that if we have tasted of the grace of the Lord, His great love and salvation, we should continue to appreciate the savour of His Word and Spirit, and subscribe for life to the spiritual diet that brought us back from spiritual death to life in the first place!



See also:
http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

War!

"(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)" 2corinthians 10:4

Weapons, warfare, strongholds! We are left without a shadow of doubt from the terminology of the Bible, that God wants us to understand and remember - WE ARE AT WAR!

It is challenging to our minds to think that the Prince of Peace, who calls us to live peaceably with all men and to make our utmost effort towards loving and genuine, harmless cohabitation at a physical level, issues at the same time a very real, strong and serious call to us all, to fight valiantly in spiritual warfare.

We are soundly reminded in Ephesians Chapter 6 that our enemy is not “flesh and blood” and that is why we read here that our weapons cannot be those we might provide for ourselves by which we might deal with physical foes. They cannot be the weapons of the flesh for they cannot provide any benefit or defence in the battles of the Spirit. Such man-made weapons could never prevail in this conflict, regardless of how advanced or impressive they might be.

Nevertheless should we be able to see with spiritual eyes the mode of dress of true believers, we would see them in full battle armour, arrayed and ready for the enemy, should enmity arise anywhere, anytime. A description of the spiritual armoury we are able to receive from the Lord and use by His might and strength, is given in the same chapter of Ephesians and includes both defensive and offensive weapons. Many scriptures elsewhere also detail impressive spiritual weaponry which is available to the consecrated believer.

That we are at war therefore and in need to be well versed with the weapons of this conflict, is a fact well known and well accepted by every spiritually minded believer. Like the weapons, the battle is not fought in the ability of our flesh, though we live in this body. The fight is rather a spiritual one, a conflict between us as believers in Jesus and the powers of the spiritual world of darkness, sourced by our enemy - Satan.

These powers are arrayed against us and would want our destruction at any opportunity possible. God's answer to this is to equip us with an arsenal which is not 'carnal', that is - of the earthly or human kind, but is rather described as ‘mighty through God’.  Herein is a clue to the nature and the use of these weapons. They are powerful against our enemy, when triggered, launched, lifted, driven or in any sense handled by us ‘through’ God. Success in these armed spiritual encounters has little to do with our own physical strength, human ability or skill, and everything to do with the way and degree to which we are able to lean on Jesus through His Holy Spirit, in the use of these provided munitions!

 The weapons of the Spirit which God imparts to all true believers include: prayer and fasting, the name and blood of Jesus, God's Word, discernment, wisdom, faith and the fellowship of the saints. All of these and much more are the mighty, powerful and formidable armoury which God has provided and imparted to us and which can and will defeat our spiritual enemies, when used ‘through God’. We are blessed to be so well equipped for the fight and able in Jesus to vanquish our foes!

Our task then is to ‘wear’ at all times the armour God has provided; to be prepared ‘in the Spirit’ by practicing with each of the ‘weapons’ and being competent with them; but most of all to be totally and humbly reliant on the power, direction and wisdom of the Spirit of God, when faced with an enemy in a battle. It is only through Jesus that we are caused to triumph over the adversary, by tearing down the strongholds and destroying the grip and work of the enemy in our lives and the lives of others!



See also:
http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

Safely Hidden

"Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." Psalm 119:11

David had determined to live righteously before the Lord and took care to guard his heart against sin.

The Word of God instructs us that it is our responsibility to carefully protect of our hearts and minds against the things God forbids or that antagonize the Lord and go against His Word. We are to ensure the purity of our thoughts and motivations, deny ourselves illegitimate or sinful desires and maintain a correct relationship of righteousness and obedience with the Lord.

God provides us with ample assistance and with all the necessary ‘tools’ to achieve these ends, but ultimately it is up to us to direct our desires towards Him, to dedicate our hearts and minds in service to Him and consecrate our lives to the walk of holiness more each day. This choice will determine whether we live God’s way or fall in line with the ways of the flesh.

David was not going to leave this outcome to chance or a second rate effort. He was resolute in overcoming the sin that plagues the human family and so easily besets us. He was definite about taking the necessary measures that would ensure his success in the endeavours of maintaining purity!

In this verse he divulges one of the simplest and yet most powerful ways to find an assurance and security that we will preserve a stand of righteousness and holiness before the Lord. God states that His people are destroyed (in sin and degradation) for a lack of knowledge and points out that the lack was due to a rejection or disregard for the knowledge He had given (Hosea 4:6). This is at the core of the sin problem with God’s people. It isn't a lack of information that ends up destroying us, but a lack of desire to partake of God’s Word and a lack of discipline in retaining it present and important in our hearts.

David knew this and did something about it. In an age where information was not easily accessible and not wanting to loose grip on what he had received from God, he stored it in the most important, closest and most personal place he could - he ‘hid’ the Word of God in His heart! He intended to get this right, and his assurance for this, was to read, study, meditate on, memorize, remember and repeat the word of God in His heart! His discipline and desire for God merited a sterling report from God as a man who kept the Lord’s commandments and followed God with all his heart. This would not have been possible without God’s Word being stored in his heart!

Today we have no shortage of access to the printed Word of God, or for that matter the electronic versions, stored in text, audio and video formats, on all kinds of amazing and ‘smart’ devices, but the question is – is it stored in our hearts? We might feel quite secure in the fact that we have ‘the knowledge’ WITH US, but is it really benefiting us if the knowledge in not IN US? One of the obvious problems with many Christians today is the lack of knowledge of what God says in His word. If we are not equipped and ready with this knowledge we cannot respond adequately to the situations of life and temptations of the devil. Satan is quite happy for us to own shelves full of Bibles, and a bible on every electronic device we may choose, as long as we don’t read it, study it, remember it, assimilate it, believe it or practice it!

David indicated that his practice was to ‘hide’ or memorize the word of God in his heart and that this helped him to stay clear of sin. This practice can work for us also, if we will but submit to its disciplines. The regular reading of God’s Word, meditating on its meaning and applications, the memorizing of key verses and passages to recite to ourselves often, all work together in helping to hide ‘the knowledge’ in our hearts. This frequent and regular washing of God's principles and values through the mind and heart, keeps us alerted and awake against spiritual pollution, helps us react quickly against temptation and positively against thoughts and practices which violate God's values, and strengthen us as we strive to maintain holiness before the Lord.

Jesus showed us how to defeat the devil, when in His own temptation He quoted the Word of God as His defence and used it as His weapon. He could do that because He had memorised it, understood it and applied it to His life. Jesus overcame and defeated the temptations of the devil and we can too, by taking a stand on the Word of God, when we have made it ours through study, meditation, memorization and application.

How valuable and important it is to keep God's word always ready in our mind and heart if we want to live above sin! We should read it every day, meditate upon it and memorize portions of it which can then be recited and reviewed. Most if all we should seek to prayerfully practice the principles of it in every aspect of daily living. God's word in our hearts is life and it will keep us from sin! 



See also:
http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion