SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/27/2020
10:38 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “the Maker of Peace: God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 5:9
Message of the
verse: ““Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called sons of God.”
I mentioned in our last
SD about Colossians 1:20 which states the following “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the
blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth
or things in heaven.” Now we want to look
at how the cross could bring peace. When
we look at the cross we can see that all of man’s hatred and anger was vented
against God there. Jesus was mocked,
cursed, spit upon, pierced, reviled, and then He was killed. All of His disciples fled in fear, the sky
produced lightening, the earth shook greatly, and then the curtain of the
temple between the holy place and the Holy of holies was torn into. And yet through all of this violence God brought
peace. MacArthur adds “God’s greatest
righteousness confronted man’s greatest wickedness, and righteousness won. And because righteousness won, peace was won.”
MacArthur goes on to talk about the
book written by Don Richardson’s book Peace
Child the following: “He tells of his long struggle to bring the gospel to
the cannibalistic, headhunting Sawi tribe of Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Try as he would, he could not find a way to
make the people understand the gospel message, especially the significance of
Christ’s atoning death on the cross.
“Sawi villages were constantly
fighting among themselves, and because treachery, revenge, and murder were
highly honored there seemed no hope of peace.
The tribe, however, had a legendary custom that if one village gave a
baby boy to another village, peace would prevail between the two villages as
long as the child lived. The baby was
called a ‘peace child.’
The missionary seized on that story
as an analogy of the reconciling work of Christ. Christ, he said, is God’s divine Peace Child
that He has offered to man, and because Christ lives eternally His peace will
never end. That analogy was the key that
unlocked the gospel for the Sawis. In a
miraculous working of the Holy Spirit many of them believed in Christ, and a
strong, evangelistic church soon developed—and peace came to the Sawis.”
The Father is the source of peace,
and the Son is the manifestation of that peace, and the Holy Spirit is the
agent of that peace. We can see from
Galatian 5:22 the following “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness” and those following verses in Galatians
continue to give different parts of the Spirit’s fruit. The God of peace sent the Prince of Peace who
sends the Spirit of peace to give the fruit of peace and it is no wonder that
the Trinity is called “Yahweh Shalom,” The Lord of Peace as seen in Judges 6:24a. “Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD
and named it The LORD is Peace.”
When God created the world the world
was at peace, and then sin came into the world and peace was taken away so He
sent His Son to make peace through the blood of the cross. In the future when the Lord Jesus Comes back
to planet earth at the height of the worst war and the worst battle of that war
He will end that battle and once again bring peace to planet earth as He reigns
from David’s throne in Jerusalem. In the
meantime it is the job of all believers to tell the story of what Jesus did to
bring peace to those that the Spirit of God brings into our lives.
I live by one of the great lakes,
Lake Erie and this lake is the shallowest lake of all the great lakes. When storm come up on Lake Erie because it is
so shallow the storms can cause trouble faster than the other lakes and also
oceans. There have been in the past and
will in the future be earth’s most violent weather on the oceans, but the
deeper one goes to the more serene and tranquil become. This is a picture of the Christian’s peace
writes John MacArthur, “The world around him, including his own circumstances,
may be in great turmoil and strife, but in his deepest being he has peace that
passes understanding. Those who are in
the best of circumstances but without God can never find peace, but those in
the worst circumstance but with God need never lack peace.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have a
friend who is in need of open heart surgery, he is a wonderful man of God whom
I love and have great respect for as a fellow believer and retired Pastor. I pray that the Lord will give him the
wonderful peace that passes all understanding as he goes through the surgery, and
may the Lord heal him through the doctors and the medicines.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that
the Lord will give me peace in my life as I am going through some difficult
things at this time.
5/27/2020 11:25
AM
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