"Who has saved us,...according to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ..before the world began." 2 Tim. 1:9

This is a picture of me 45 years ago with a local TV celebrity, who visited me in the hospital. He had a local kids show, where he portrayed a mute hobo named Lorenzo the Tramp, sort of clown type of guy, and he would always end his show with a dance called the " Lorenzo Stomp".
My father had a photographer take a picture as he came to visit me. I gave him a rubber pencil as a joke, and he actually signed his name with it. The thing that stunned me the most was when he spoke to me. For up until now I had never heard him speak.

The reason I was in traction, was that I was struck by a car as a ran across the street without looking. My right femur was broken in half, and the doctors had to drill an iron rod through my leg to fix it. I can still remember screaming as the doctor drilled a hole through my leg. But as painful as that was, I believe my Dad must have had such excruciating pain to see his 10 year son go through all this. He never spoke about it to me, but I'm certain he was hurting big time. I was in the hospital for 6 weeks, and then another 6 weeks of rehab. The driver who hit me was a young man, and was totally innocent. I ran out into the oncoming car as I chased my older brother Brian, who had crossed the street just before, and who saw me receive the blow from the vehicle. Brian never spoke about what he felt either. It must have been hard to watch your little brother be knocked 20 yards in the air and land on his face, and then lie a pool of blood. I really should have been killed, if not for the mercy of God.

I share all this, because it truly was the grace of God, and the power of my Lord that was with me even back then, when I was still in the kingdom of darkness, and yet to be called into His marvelous light. It would be 20 years later, in the year of our Lord 1984, that the Lord would open my heart, and bring me to Himself, and to faith.

I hope this encourages you. God loved us before the foundations of the world, and He is not willing that any of His children shall perish, but that one day they all shall come to repentance, and come to love the Savior of their soul.
Yes, He loved us when we were yet without strength, and in due time Christ would come and die for the ungodly (Romans 5:6). And Jesus came to not only save us from our sins, but He came to seek out every lost sheep, and bring them into His pasture, and fold.

The Shack Reviewed | TheResurgence

The Shack Reviewed | TheResurgence

"Peace I leave with you".

"In this verse our Lord gives His disciples one more consolation. He bequeaths them as a legacy, "peace;" not riches or worldly honor, but peace,--peace of heart, conscience, and inward man,--peace from a sense of pardoned sin, a living Savior, and a home in heaven.

Matthew Henry remarks here, "When Christ left the world, He made His will. His soul He bequeathed to His Father, and His body to Joseph. His clothes fell to the soldiers. His mother He left to the care of John. But what should He leave to His poor disciples, who had left all for Him? Silver and gold He had none; but He left them what was far better, His peace." -John Charles Ryle, From his Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Volume 4.

Jesus truly desires we learn of Him, and find a peaceful rest for our souls (Matt. 11:28). Is there such a gift in the world?
I have been reading through the book of Acts in the morning, and today I came to where Peter was arrested and chained to four guards in prison, with his cloak and sandals taken from him.
So there he was, and he was sound asleep. I thought here is the disciple of Christ experiencing a heavy trial, and yet he is full of Jesus' promise of His peace. So much so that he sleeps. And so an angel comes into the cell, and with a brightness as well, and yet Peter is so fast asleep the angel had to kick him to wake him.
May we experience such peace as our elder brother Peter did. Especially as the days become darker and darker. For Jesus' promise of His peace is for all His children, which includes you and me. Amen.

"But the Fruit of the Spirit is ...peace..."

"When Paul listed peace as one of nine traits of the fruit of the Spirit, he was probably thinking primarily of peace with other people. He had already warned the Galatians against "biting and devouring each other" (Galatians 5:15). And in his list of the acts of the sinful nature, immediately preceding his list of the fruit of the Spirit, those actions that are totally opposite to peace are predominant: hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy. As he began to list traits of godly character that the Galatians needed to keep foremost in mind, peace with one another must have been near the top of his list.

The importance of this aspect of peace is amply evident from major references to it in the New Testament. Here are just a few:

Blessed are the peacemakers. (Matthew 5:9)

As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. (Romans 12:18)

Make every effort to do what leads to peace. (Romans 14:19)

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. (Colossians 3:15)

Make every effort to live in peace with all men. (Hebrews 12:14

Whoever would love life and see good days...must seek peace and pursue it. (1 Peter 3:10-11)

...The pursuit of peace does not include an easygoing, peace-at-any-cost kind of attitude; it does not include capitulating to wrong or injustice just for the sake of maintaining appearances. That kind of behavior often leads instead to strife within ourselves. The conflicts that are disturbing our peace with others must be courageously but graciously faced and dealt with. Pursuing peace does not mean running away from the causes of discord." -Jerry Bridges, From his book: The Fruitful Life.

I remember having to go through some of this "biting and devouring each other" in my last church. It truly was an ugly time. I look back now and wish we would have pursued peace, or at least I would have done so more. I was running away from the confrontation, becasue I hated it. But I realize now that I should have been pursuing peace in a more direct way with others who had become resentful and even nasty. It may not have helped at all, but I believe it would have pleased the Lord, and that would have made it worth the effort. Not that I didn't pursue peace with some, and did eventually have peace.

May our Lord teach us, and empower us, to be peacemakers. Amen.

"..in Me you may have peace."

"As Jesus finished talking to His disciples on the evening of His betrayal. He concluded with these words: "I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). In this assurance of peace, Jesus made two promises.

His first promise was that we will have trouble in the world. The same circumstances that rob us of our joy also rob us of our peace. The common denominator of all these circumstances is uncertainty. A loved one is ill, and the diagnosis is uncertain. Or our car breaks down while on a trip; will we have enough money to pay for repairs and perhaps extra meals and lodging? How will we get to our destination in time? Our luggage fails to arrive with us on an airline flight. Will we ever see it again? What will we do until it is returned to us? These and countless other circumstances continue to prove that Jesus was indeed correct when He promised us that we will have trouble in this world.

But the second promise that Jesus made was just as correct: He has overcome the world. ...He has power over all the universe, and He exercises it on our behalf and for our good. ...not even a sparrow can fall to the ground apart from the will of our Father. And even the hairs of our heads are numbered.

So why do we worry? Because we do not believe. We are not really convinced that the same Jesus who can keep a sparrow in the air knows where our lost luggage is, or how we are going to pay that car repair bill, or how we can get to our destination on time. Or if we believe that He CAN deliver us through our difficulties, we doubt if He WILL. We let Satan sow seeds of doubt in our minds about His love and care for us.

...The great antidote to anxiety is to come to God in prayer. We are to pray about everything. Nothing is too big for Him to handle, and nothing is too small to escape His attention.

The result promised to us when we come to God in prayer with thanksgiving is not deliverance but the peace of God.
One of the reasons we don't find this peace is because all too often we will not settle for anything other than deliverance FROM the trouble. But God ...promises us peace, a peace that is unexplainable. It transcends all understanding. ...it will guard our hearts and minds against the anxiety to which you and I are so prone." -Jerry Bridges

What a tremendous gift from God this peace, or contentment. And when God does fill us with His peace in those heavy and hard situations, we shall be able to tell others, when they come and ask us about our contentment, and about our great hope, who the cause of our peace is: Jesus Christ. And our Lord receives all the honor and praise for His gracious gift of divine peace, that defies explantion.