In light of the times we live in, integrity, common sense, righteous judgment and justice seem to be at a premium and found increasingly missing in the simplest of situations. We need calming and comforting words of understanding with earnest prayer to guard our hearts and minds in peace through Christ Jesus...
"Be anxious for nothing (unburden yourselves), but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding (peace that exceeds, overrides the incapacity to understand and positions you to understand from God's perspective), will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus".(Phil.4:6-7)
Mind you, this comfort is not always for lack of asking Him - "You receive not because you ask not." There are just those times where we are left with a deafening quiet that makes us think we are unheard... maybe forsaken. At this point, we could foolishly start picking daisies with saying, "He loves me, He loves me not...!" And, tragically begin to lose faith and the standard we have held in following Him passionately. Considering the Day we are in, with perversions of power mounting, love toward God comes under the threat of waxing cold. However, there is an abounding grace, a divine enabling to act from God in confronting sin's increase for a greater and stronger faith that will see His glory! And Grace never seems to live alone in the New Testament, but is found in good company of her sister, Peace. Rom.1:7, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." This statement used in continual greeting of the saints throughout the epistles is not to be taken lightly.
"And this One shall be peace" (Mic.5:5). "He is our peace..." (Eph.2:14). "...Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end..." (Isa.9:6b-7a).
"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid". (John14:27).
God has a map of our horizons that He overshadows. History is already written in the annals of Heaven and it is all chronicled beneath His-story. While we ask again for God's transforming power to change our situations or another word of rescue, in the deafening quiet He may be asking us what has been transformed in our thinking that makes us any different than the world thinks? When so much of the Church remains conformed to this world; without sign, wonder and miracle, why should there be another fast fix that leaves little difference in His image among us? The Lord is not running a university or a college that gives a degree for what our head thinks to have learned. His is a trade school where we are called to leave our lives at the door to receive His. All must become hands-on experience from Him taking us to His higher thought and way that are not ours. I fear that even we who cherish the revelation of His Word, may find our understanding inconsequential in standing up to the pressures that are building at this time. Unless we are taking our understanding to the bank of His interest with us where our life's currency is exchanged, the test of fire will surely burn it up. The fellowship of the disciples was bent on what they heard, saw, touched and handled of that eternal Word and Life. This they passed on to us to be our fellowship as well! The peace He gives is for the fray and pray, not play. It is not passive, but active.
In the volume of the Lord's thoughts and words, some are given as overtones, others as undertones, none without exceeding significance for walking with Him. The overtone would be the more prominent tone carried in the likeness of an instrument that first brings about a song, it's melody. It is the song! To enrich the song, other instruments may be added: violins, cellos, trumpets, woodwinds... etc. each playing its own harmonious part in filling out the song masterfully. Its orchestral beauty makes it a song in want of never ending; unshakably branded in our hearts and minds. But if that one instrument (or voice) that holds the original melody should be removed, all else loses the line from which it was composed to fit.
My wife and I have led worship for years spending time going over songs new and old. From time to time, she'll ask me if I remember a song that she begins to sing. Wonderingly, I've said to her, "I have no idea what that song is?" The conflict thus begins with her singing it again and me saying, "I've never heard it before!" Until I realize she is singing harmony (or the undertone) to the song, as she always has. It is not the melody itself, but the enrichment, the fill, the enhancement, so vital. Words of God bearing His overtone are the essence of our walk; they carry the "always, forever, every, surely..." factor. When understanding is not clear, the main melody remains as an anchor for our soul. Their endless ring are reminders to our spirit of an immovable place we have yet to abide in faith. He is in those words to be found and they are Him!
For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." (Heb.13:5a)
"For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Rom.8:6)
"And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." (1 John4:16)
"Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. (Lam.3:22-23)
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Heb.13:8)
Saints, the witness of the Holy Spirit that first bypassed our natural mind to bring His salvation, continues to call our heart and mind to His peace where we trust, obey and discern our need to "...pull down imaginations, human reasoning, tear down intellectual arguments and every lofty opinion that pits itself against the knowledge of the one true God, bringing every loose thought, emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ..." (2 Cor.10:4-5 DCV). This is for our forward!
"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful" (Col.3:15).
""You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You" (Isa.26:3).
"For David says concerning Him: ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken'" (Acts 2:25).
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