Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a You Tube video of a Gaither Homecoming group of friends, singing the old hymnWonderful Peace, declaring the reality the peace offered and given by God’s Spirit when we’re willing/able to receive it from our Lord.
Highlight Passage: 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.
… We can find peace from our Lord … even in the most dyer of circumstances.
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Highlight Context – John 14:16-27 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus calming His Disciples in the light of His impending death with the promise of His Spirit.
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Reference Passage #1 - Isaiah 26:3 [NKJV] …
3 You [LORD] will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, … because he trusts in You.
… Peace = holding onto and trusting in God.
Reference Passage #2 - Matthew 11:28-38 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus’s promise of peace when we bring our burdens to Him.
Reference Passage #3 - Philippians 4:6-7 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… God’s rebuke of worry or anxiety … and His promise of peace.
Reference Passage #4 - 2nd Timothy 1:7 [NKJV] …
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
… A spirit of fear NEVER comes from God. His Spirit gives us His love and His peace!
My Journal for Today: … Our Daily Bread author, Amy Boucher Pye, tells a personal story to illustrate how Christians can jettison fear and in faith capture the peace of God. In today’s ODB entry, she writes: “I’m not surprised you lead retreats,” said an acquaintance in my exercise class. “You have a good aura.” I was jolted but pleased by her comment, because I realized that what she saw as an “aura” in me, I understood to be the peace of Christ. As we follow Jesus, He gives us the peace that transcends understanding (Phil. 4:7) and radiates from within—though we may not even be aware of it.
Immediately, in reading this today, the question bubbled to my consciousness, asking if others would feel like standing beside the stream depicted in the attached photo when they were in my presence. … I hope so; … because over the years I’ve learned to believe and trust in the truth of the reference Scriptures cited above and to have my heart sing a song like the one linked above with a Gaither gathering singing, “Wonderful Peace.”
In the ODB highlight passage, the author today teaches of Jesus offering His disciples His peace in that Upper Room the night before our Lord was to go to the cross; and even these close Christ followers had trouble receiving the Lord’s peace that night. But later, after His resurrection, they grasped the truth of what Jesus had said that night and they lived their lives as fearless and peace-driven ambassadors of the Gospel.
Prayerfully that is how we are living today; … and how we can - and should - live tomorrow.
My Prayer Today: O, Heavenly Father, … Prayerfully, Lord, others see and sense Your peace in my life, flowing in my heart like a peaceful stream. 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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