Ordain Peace for Us
Isaiah
{26:12} LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.
{26:13} O LORD our God, [other] lords besides thee have had dominion over us: [but] by thee only will we make mention of thy name.
{26:14} [They are] dead, they shall not live; [they are] deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.
{26:15} Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed [it] far [unto] all the ends of the earth.
{26:16} LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer [when] thy chastening [was] upon them.
{26:17} Like as a woman with child, [that] draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, [and] crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.
{26:18} We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
Ordain peace for us.
There's something special there isn't there. Ordain peace.
We are meant to have peace ultimately, peace is ordained for us. Could there be a better future? Peace. How many people have very little peace in their lives. Maybe not everyone has a life of turmoil but we sort of expect various things to go wrong to interfer with the peace we really want. A good day is a day that goes by without any upsets, right?
Peace. We try to take vacations from our everyday life seeking some peace. Ultimately we will have peace because it has been ordained for us. We won't have it here and now...
John
{14:27} Peace I leave with
you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give
I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be
afraid.
{16:33} These
things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have
peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good
cheer; I have overcome the world.
In the world we will have tribulation.
Through Jesus we will have peace...it's ordained.
People throughout time have had those they called lord- rulers, masters, leaders they've put in place of God and yet they all die they are human and death takes them. 'They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.'
There is no lord but God, our Lord and Savior!
{26:17} Like as a woman with child, [that] draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, [and] crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.
{26:18} We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
A woman in labor. Pain, crying, travailing...we cry out and for all our crying out we have nothing to show for it. All our crying, screaming, and flailing about and in the end it'll be for nothing. We can't bring about salvation from our own efforts. No matter how painful our efforts are, no matter how hard we try to bring about our salvation all our hard work, all our pain to obtain it will be for nothing if we count on ourselves for deliverance. Only Christ can save us. We can't save ourselves. We can't bring about the end of days. We can't bring an end to this world or the evil that dwells within it. We can't bring low any man, not really, not as God can. God will prevail and it is through God we have salvation and only through God. Of our ownselves we are nothing and when we fuss and bother about our own good works, about our own trials and tribulations, hardships we've endured we are fussing for no reason. All our lives mean little, all that we go through is nothing compared to what Christ endured. We like to imagine that what we suffer is enough to make us deserve salvation, and yet nothing we do, nothing we suffer will ever have us deserving of anything but death for our sins. Yes, we go through horrible hardships, we go through horrors we can't imagine we can survive, we go through day to day life struggling to survive and yet it is only grasping hold of Christ that will mean a thing. Fairness has nothing to do with any of it, it is hope and trust, faith, belief in Christ and salvation through Him and Him only.
May the Lord help us to understand that we need Christ and Christ only in our lives. Our hope in Christ has to be foremost beyond anything else. We need to cry out.. Lord I believe! Help my unbelief! We believe in Him and Salvation through Him and no other. By grace are we saved.
Please Lord Your will be done in our lives now and forever! By Your mercy and grace!
Amen.
3/11/10
Stir you up by putting you in remembrance
2Pe 1:1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
2Pe 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
2Pe 1:3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2Pe 1:5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
2Pe 1:6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
2Pe 1:7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
2Pe 1:8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
2Pe 1:10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
2Pe 1:11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.
2Pe 1:13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
2Pe 1:14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
2Pe 1:15 Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
2Pe 1:16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
2Pe 1:17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
2Pe 1:18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
2Pe 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
2Pe 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
2Pe 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Faith
Virtue
Knowledge
Temperance
Patience
Godliness
Brotherly Kindness
Charity
We need these things in our lives constantly, always and if we don't have them then we are blind, we can't see the future, we've forgotten that we've been saved from our old sins.
Take stock of yourself, it's something we ALL have to do. When we stop caring if we believe, when believing in God, in our Savior becomes something we've tucked away in the back of our minds and lives, we are in danger. It's not enough to believe without caring, without loving. The Bible tells us this-
Jas 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
Devils believe. They know the truth and it scares them. We have to know the truth and in knowing believe, have faith in that truth. We have to have virture, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity. When we stop short of believing that we should have these things in our lives we begin to slip away from Christ. We become blind and we don't focus on a future life with Him in heaven. We forget that He came to save us from our sins so that we may live with Him in a world that is beyond our imagination without pain of any kind, without sadness, without angst, without all that troubles a person. Every day we are faced with problems, old ones, new ones, problems we anticipate will come our way. We don't live without knowing that there are hardships to face, we are quick to think on them. We need to be quick to think on God and God's way.
Peter is adamant about putting us in remembrance.
2Pe 1:12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.
Even though we know we need to remember always so we're established in present truth. We can't think on these things enough. We can't talk about them enough. We can't write about them enough. We need to have these thoughts before us at all times.
May God bless and keep us now and always in remembrance of Him and His love for us in the hope of living with Christ our Lord and Savior forever.
By His grace, by His mercy.
In His love.
Amen.
3/11/11