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

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

Pray!

 “Is any among you afflicted? let him pray……” James 5:13

Believers are well acquainted with affliction and suffering. Becoming a Christian does not prevent us from being exposed to the same difficulties and trials which overall plague the human race. It is not in the avoidance or evasion of distress but in the manner of coping and dealing with it, that the saint of God has an edge and real means of surviving the anguish, sorrow and grief that life can bring. One of the weapons of an overcoming Christian life is prayer.

Prayer is the correct positioning of all flesh before God. It ought to be the most natural and obvious choice at all times and in all seasons of life, but particularly so when we are faced with difficulty. The Word of God directs those who believe, to pray when they are faced with the afflictions of life. This is not to say that we should pray only in the tough times of life, but that they are the times when our response should definitely be prayer! The reasons for this are many.

Prayer is the conduit that brings to us mere mortals, the power and blessing of the eternal and almighty God. It is the channel of communication with He Who is greater than us and can do all the things that are outside our control and ability. Afflictions, sufferings and infirmities remind us of how vulnerable and weak we really are. They help us remeasure and redefine in practical terms, our ever present need for God! They are also opportunities for us to build a stronger relationship with the Lord by leaning more heavily on Him and trusting Him beyond where we may have trusted before.

The more frequently we respond to life’s challenges with prayer, the more adept we become to pray, knowing consciously and from our life’s history how that prayer has aided us in connecting with the Lord and in receiving what we have needed in various trying or desperate circumstances. Taking the time to pray teaches us that prayer works and that, as James tells us in v16 of this same chapter, if it is the fervent and effectual prayer of a righteous person - it avails, benefits, profits and rewards a great deal! The testimony of millions, who have verified that there is power in prayer and amazing, unequalled benefits in all circumstances and conditions of life, is overwhelming as it is inspiring.

With this knowledge and evidence both from God’s Word and from the lives of those who in obedience have practiced the principles of prayer to secure its helps and rewards, we must ask ourselves why we don’t pray more!? In fact it would be very pertinent to analyse our heart and life dealings, to see whether prayer is the course of action we choose to take at all. Is it our first option in finding solutions to the woes of life? Do we resort to this Royal telephone line for input from God, ahead of relying on ourselves or seeking the opinion and assistance of others? If we do pray, do we so in faith and trust that God is able and available to answer us?

The prayer experience is sometimes reduced to just saying or repeating prayers in rote fashion, merely fulfilling a duty or ritual, but this is not true praying as the bible describes. The imperative of prayer in scripture, is evidence of God’s command that we perform this holy exercise and that we do so from the heart and soul not simply the lips. How deeply rewarding and satisfying it is to man, when in faith real prayer is made to the Almighty God! How great a deliverance we find and receive from the troubles and afflictions of life, at the hand of the loving Saviour! Jesus is looking for opportunities to provide rest, relief and blessing in all our difficulties of life, if only we would choose to make sincere prayer our first response and not our last resort!



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

Stormy Weather

"The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him." Nahum 1:7

The strong wind was bending the trees like a giant merciless hand. Through the window, I could see the yard grounds bloated with the rains that had been soaking into it, almost non-stop for days. The image before me was dim, cold and uninviting. I was glad to be indoors, sheltered in the relative comfort of the dry, warm and familiar surrounds of my home. Somewhere on the news were reports of storms hitting elsewhere, leaving some homes with damaged roofs while flash floods were impairing travel and generally making life difficult. Stormy weather!   

We all face the stormy weather of life. There are times when the gusty winds of life’s difficulties push us to the limit and the torrential rains of sorrow soak our heart and soul. Life’s storms do not exonerate anyone. They have no regard to age, and they do not select on any criteria whether it be education, culture, status or descent. We console one another with this general and vague knowledge that after all ‘everyone faces difficulties’ and that ‘life is meant to try us’. Some well-meaning comforter reminds us that ‘there is always someone worse off than we’, but somehow that doesn't really help us in our present struggle. Our best preparation, bravest courage and noblest mental attitude do little to shelter us from the blows and unforeseen challenges and trials that like those un-tethered winds, can buffet us, plague us and push us around.

Some of the troubled days we face, are of our own making, the result of poor judgement, disobedience or plain stupidity when we knowingly select to do or participate in those things that we know will expose us to distress and potentially harm us! Other times of trouble just seem to land at our door step, unsolicited by our choices and like a vexing blowfly, fly into our space clearly unwanted. These seasons of difficulty are very real and threatening as they absorb our time, mind, emotional strength and physical energy. They make us feel like we are walking up a downward escalator, for each step we take we seem to go backwards two. The unrelenting currents of trial push at us and would flush us downstream, requiring that we strain every mental and emotional sinew in our being, in an effort to stay on top.

Drained, floundering, and often feeling alone and wasted in our stressful experiences of life’s storms, we sometimes wonder how we can make it through and if there can ever be hope for a brighter, better tomorrow. We long to hide from the troubles that face us and long for shelter, reprieve and an end or at least a pause, in the struggle against the unseen forces that taunt us. Who truly understands? Where is refuge? Does anyone care?

To those who trust in the Lord it soon becomes clear that God is our only refuge. He is the strong place and high tower that can protect us in, and lift us above our troubles. He is the One who cares and can help us withstand the onslaught of life's turmoil. God is still God in times of crisis, and in the demanding, confusing times.  Knowing, loving and trusting Jesus is our strength and security at all times but particularly in the tough and challenging seasons of life. 

What's more the Lord knows those that trust Him this way and in such difficult situations! That speaks of a care and personal attention that is given by our loving God to those who in the midst of life's storms, when the billows of the oceans of trial toss and threaten, look to Him for strength, comfort and overcoming. Instead of relying on their own limited strength or the temporal camouflage of things or substances in futile attempts to survive, those trusting God know they can lean on Him, that He knows them and cares and that He is the answer! 



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

A Prescription for Health

Proverbs 3:7-8 "Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones." 

 God has made a way for us to remain well and strong at all levels of our being. The process begins with fearing the Lord. This is not a dread or terror as of a tyrannical ruler, but a wholesome honour and awe of who God is, a heartfelt respect for what He does, and for the principles He teaches in His word. It means making Him so present in all areas of our lives that we will not want any part of evil. If there is to be a dread at all, it would be just that – an anxiousness to avoid doing anything that might affront our Lord or hamper our relationship with Him!  

This same wholesome fear and awe of God, precludes us from thinking of ourselves as wise in ourselves; experienced and confident in our own abilities without due acknowledgement that we need the Lord and cannot do without Him! When we become wise in our own eyes, we are proud and are attempting to impose our own thinking and ways over those God wants for us. This is not only self-deceiving, but also self-defeating because it replaces the true and God-honouring wisdom we are to have as believers.

We can make the mistake of claiming we honour and fear God and yet subscribe to ways of life which He considers evil. This is not wisdom from above! In serving God there must be a concerted effort to make our departure from what our Lord and Sovereign God sees as offensive to His holy nature. Second guessing God and His word is hardly living in awe of God!

True wisdom begins with fearing God. This is healthy and makes us vigorous at all levels, but self-conceit and arrogance can only bring ailment and self-destruction, whilst at the same time damaging relationship with others.

The 'navel', was seen as the centre of all human emotions, the place where the strongest feelings are formed and acted upon. We still refer in our modern language to the ‘butterflies’ in our belly and the ‘churning’ of stomach, or that 'gut' feeling, in an effort to describe certain emotions.

Fearing God and avoiding evil brings health to the navel and so is presented to us as a godly process of gaining and maintaining emotional stability and fortitude. In a modern world, with humanity marked by mounting troubled emotions and escalating mental traumas, we surely need an answer to our plight! God provides us with His prescription for the problem.

It has been said that the greatest evidence of the fear of God is obedience to Him. Perhaps we would not be hounded and conquered by so many fears and phobias, or overcome and destroyed by the ever-present stresses of life, if we truly obeyed and gave the correct place in our lives of honour and respect to God, the One who knows us best and loves us most! 



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

Proclaim Him Worthy! (part 1)

“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 1Ti 1:17 

As humans we often make great proclamations and give praise and acclaim to all sorts of persons. From the appropriate applause given in the media to the praise worthy rescue officer for self-sacrificial efforts made in times of crisis, to the frequently misplaced and even excessive adulation lavished freely by many on some contemporary band, actor or performer, we clearly demonstrate that we are capable of praise and yes worship!

Sadly far too few in this world demonstrate any such passion for the One who is truly worthy of all admiration, praise, worship and acclamation. In fact in the noise of all things human that surround us day to day, entire lifetimes are spent and gone without a single solitary thought of praise, or a word of thanks to the Eternal God who made us all.

In stark contrast to this general spiritual numbness of most of humanity, the gratitude, exaltation and honour expressed by the Apostle toward God, rings a loud and reverberating reminder to all of us of how we ought to view the Lord and what we ought to express to Him.

Like a well primed pump, a ready, unrestrained praise and genuine heart-full worship should burst out from our souls as we consider this ‘blessed and only Potentate’, who is not merely a king but the KING of Kings; not just a nobleman or VIP, but the LORD of Lords; not merely a performer limited to one art or another, but the Creator of all, the author and finisher of our faith, the beginning and the ending of all things, the repository of all knowledge and wisdom -  the Almighty! He is Someone to get excited about!

Kings, sovereigns and leaders come and go leaving a distant or unfamiliar memory, or at most an historical trace in some dusty book on a library shelf, but not this King of Ages! He is ever present and endures forever. He is eternal, having been there before all others and continuing when all others will long have passed away. Everything we know, see and have around us proceeded from Him and will be outlived by Him. God is permanent in the true sense of the word! He doesn’t wear away, rust, weaken or become out-dated!

Looking in the mirror as we age, we can all see the signs and sense the effects which time has on us. We feel the deterioration in our bodies and can admit freely that ‘we ain’t quite what we used to be’! But it isn’t so with this Almighty King! He is immortal and totally incorruptible, not given to any of the decay and weakening and corrosion we are accustomed to. He is now what He has always been and will always remain the same perfect, complete, self-existing and sufficient One. When we have King Jesus in our lives we have a constant and consistent Friend who never changes, leaves or dies! Our eternal Monarch has no successors and will ever rule and reign supreme! (Continued in part 2)

See also: 

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

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

Staying True

"Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life." 1 John 2:24-25

 The teaching, light and revelation God gave us by His Word when we first came to know Him, showing us His love, truth and holiness, is still the message and information which keeps us and saves us today. The same practices of prayer, study and obedience to His Word and sharing the good news of salvation with others are as important and essential today as when we first were shown them. 

We may think that modernizing, up-sizing, 'programmizing', organizing and socializing are the all-essential elements to Christian life and growth, but God is ultimately looking for enduring faithfulness to what He showed us in the beginning and the persistence of the 'first love' and passion with which we embraced those principles when we were first exposed to them. Staying with those basic principles and letting them remain is us, helps us keep our eyes on Jesus - the Author and Finisher of our faith - and is therefore the true goal of Christian living.

Holding those things as precious, and keeping them present and alive in our day to day living, abiding in our hearts and minds, means we safeguard our relationship with Jesus and ensure our eternal future in heaven. It is in this constancy and continuance, that the greatest power of Christian living is displayed. 

The spiritual message and input God supplied at the beginning was perfect and complete to start with and requires no adjustment, modernization or compromise, but only that we grow deeper in the understanding of it and more appreciative of the preciousness of it. 

How many have started out ‘in love with Jesus’ only to end up ‘in love with the world and the things of it'! This loss is tragic for it has eternal consequences.

This then, is the true expression of our faithfulness to God, that we never deviate from what He imparted to us at the beginning, and that we always maintain our fervent 'first love' toward Him and His Word! 

There is a reward promised by the Lord, to those who faithfully adhere to and do not turn or compromise from the principles and faith they first received – that promise is eternal life!


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