December 18, 2012.
This day will not be repeated again. This day there is a gift held out to us. It’s a precious gift. A gift that will see us through hard times and difficult days. It is a gift that we can not find on our own for more than a few hours. It is a gift we don’t deserve yet are freely given. It’s the gift of peace.
Look Up! Open the Gift of Peace
Today’s Focus
“And he will be called….Prince of Peace.” Isa 9:6
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me.” John 14:1 words of Jesus
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I don not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27 words of Jesus
We have been focusing on just Who this son, this child born in the manger, was born to be….We have focused on the names that God declared him to be called. Names that his life and death would fulfill. Names that are more than a Christmas greeting to be thrown away with old cards at the end of the season. It’s time to sit on the edge of our seats and look at what Truth is telling us. Jesus came to be the Prince of Peace! Being we are called into individual, relational, personal union with Jesus, this means that he came to rule as the Prince of Peace over our individual journeys.
Prince is from the Hebrew word sar, which means a head person, chief, casptain or keeper. Peace is from the Hebrew shalom, which means welfare, health, prosperity and peace. We can call Christ the Prince of Peace, or we can say that he is the keeper of our welfare! He is the keeper of our well-being. He is truly everything we need, and that is a promise that will get us through some very difficult times.
The keeper of our welfare. Remember that…
Don’t throw this powerful truth away. Even if you have become immune to the words of triuth and fail to nestle up under the mighty shelter of peace, there is still today to turn that around. Remember these 4 things:
- God is with you
- God is bigger than your problems
- God is mighty, faithful and true
- Nothing is impossible with God
We can’t stand on the street corner ranting and raving about our latest crisis and expect a wave of peace to wash over us! We have something to Do. We have a choice to make. This choice to discipline our mind and emotions is a spiritual practice that changes the condition and climate of our mind and attitude. This prince of peace, this keeper of our welfare, is the Christ of Christmas!
- We choose to believe God is in control
- We allow the reality of peace based on his control to enter our minds.
Look In: Ask God to search your heart and to show you if you have become immune to the Truth. Ask him to make it real and alive to you again, like a child learning something new, promising, exciting and fun. Ask God to make the truth come alive that He is the keeper of your welfare the prince of peace. Think about why you worry and how you spin. Ask God to speak to you regarding both. Open the gift today.
Look out: Today might be the day to begin the process of peace with another person. You can not control them, but you can do what you can do. What does that look like? What would God require? Perhaps it’s a call, a card, an invitation to meet. Perhaps its a prayer in the quiet of your own soul as God prepares us to be a peacemaker. When you are at peace with others you bless them and that is a good thing.
Pray: Draw near to God, He will draw near to you. Open the Gift today.
I am opening the gift of December 18, 2012. A day in the life….Grateful!
Debbie
Sometimes it’s easy to live each day on temporary/empty contentment. I do that by avoiding the truth. I feel temporarily happy because I’m not facing the truth and I plug other things in it’s place to fill the void….where the truth should be. Sometimes I reach out to God if I’m really sad but otherwise, I sustain myself on empty fulfillment. I say I want to be close to God but the problem is that I don’t put him first. So I guess what I have become is immune to the truth. Thanks for helping me see this. It’s hard to grow and it’s so easy to avoid growth. All you have to do to avoid it is exist. What you have to do to grow is try and then believe that God will pick up the slack. And he does if we try.
Filling with other things has been a common part of the human condition for many years. The Bible calls it idolatry. This means what ever we put before God becomes our real God. Sometimes it’s just ourselves we put before God, while saying we love and trust Him. What a wonderful place to come to when we come to him and ask for Him to do the change in us that will enable us to brush off the old truths we believed and really learn to embrace them as the life changers they were meant to be. This is the sacred journey! Merry Christmas.