Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Peace”
Our Bible verse for today: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Your heart must not be troubled or fearful.” John 14:27
Our thought for today: “Jesus was at peace and we can be too.”
One of the things that amazes me when I read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry is that He was never in a hurry. As important as His work was and as many demands as people placed upon Him, Jesus seems to have always been well-organized, on schedule, and calm. How did He do it? Of course we know that He was God in a human body but still, He was in a human body, He only had 24 hours in His day just like you and me, and since He was limited by the constraints of a human body and by the amount of time available to Him, there was only so much He could do. So how did He remain so calm and peaceful in the middle of it?
In his book “Ordering My Private World” Gordon MacDonald includes a chapter humorously entitled “Has Anyone Seen My Time? I’ve Misplaced It!” In that chapter he explores how Jesus approached His very busy life and yet maintained such calmness and peace. What MacDonald reveals is that it was because Jesus paid proper attention to keeping His inner world in order. We find that He had the habit of spending lots of quiet time alone with God the Father, sometimes in the early morning (Mark 1:35), sometimes all night (Luke 6:12), and once for forty days (Matthew 4:2).
What did Jesus do during those times of prayer? He sought His Fathers will and then He organized His own activities based upon what He knew the Father wanted Him to do (John 5:17-20). The result? He clearly understood His mission, His priorities were in order, He knew He had the freedom to say “no” to anything that did not conform to what the Father wanted Him to do, and He could therefore go forward into His days with confidence and peace.
Now here’s the thing: we can approach our lives in the same way. We can spend quiet time with the Father so that our inner self is in tune with Him. We can seek His will for our activities and invite Him to establish our priorities for us. And then, as Jesus said in John 14:27, we will not need not be fearful, troubled, frenzied, or anxious. Instead we can enjoy the same peace that Jesus had.
Jesus wants us to have the peace He had. He has offered to give it to us.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 