Sunday, June 04, 2017

June 4, 2017 … Seeking His Peace

Berry Patch Devotions in 2017 - Day 155 

Devotional Song:  … GO TO THIS LINK …  Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of song and lyrics from Don Men singing the old hymn … Wonderful Peace … poignantly singing of the only peace we can seek that is powerful to salve the wounds of our lives.
 

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Highlight Verse[s]: John 14:27 [NKJV} … 
27 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. 
… The only peace we can seek/find that will help us deal with our fleshly anxieties and worldly cares is His peace.
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Highlight Passage [context]: John 14: 25-31 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK
… Jesus is the only one who can give His disciples a peace that overcomes our worldly cares. 
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Reference Passage #1 [NKJV] : … Isaiah 26:3 [NKJV] … 
3 You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. 
… Seeking and holding our focus on the Lord is the only way to hold onto His peace.

Reference Passage #2 [NKJV] : … Philippians 4:6-7 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK
… Paul writes that the only way to find God’s perfect peace is to set aside our fears and focus, in prayer, on God’s will and His ways.

My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Amy Boucher Pye, uses a personal story to illustrate how/where we must seek to find peace in our lives. The ODB author wrote: A friend shared with me that for years she searched for peace and contentment. She and her husband built up a successful business, so she was able to buy a big house, fancy clothes, and expensive jewelry. But these possessions didn’t satisfy her inner longings for peace, nor did her friendships with influential people. Then one day, when she was feeling low and desperate, a friend told her about the good news of Jesus. There she found the Prince of Peace, and her understanding of true peace and contentment was forever changed.  

My wife always says that the best place to find God’s peace is on a quiet beach somewhere (see photo). Well, I don’t disagree that a beautiful beach, like the ones we’ve experienced together on vacations in Hawaii or in France or in Florida are great places to lay aside the cares of the world and experience God’s peace.

But we don’t have to be on a beach to seek or find that “peace that surpasses all understanding” (i.e., God’s peace), which Paul wrote about in Philippians 4:6-7. No, all it takes is a quiet place where we can go to God in prayer, or meditation in God’s word, to be calmed and quieted by the perfect peace of God (see also Isaiah 26:3).

In a very disquieting time for Jesus’ disciples in the Upper Room the night before Jesus went to the cross [see the highlight passages], the Lord offered the only place that those men (and us here and now) would (or will) ever find God’s peace; and that is in seeking, receiving, and using the grace of our Lord to overcome our flesh, the world, or the devil.

So, I pray that all reading here will join me on our own quiet mental “beach” today to seek out and receive God’s peace.

My Prayer Today: Heavenly Father, … I’m here on my quiet-time “beach” today with You and in Your word; … it’s SO peaceful. … Amen

Blogger Note:  Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries.  If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.

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