Peace in His Presence

Sunday, April 18 2010

We are starting a new series called Peace in His Presence. This is first of many to come in our topic of peace as we move onto the second stage of our 2010 decree: Reigning in Life.

For the next 4 weeks we will be using the same titles to examine our topic of "Peace in His Presence" but change the scripture references and perspectives of looking at peace.

The three titles are:
> Righteousness Brings Peace
> Signs and Wonders: the conduit for peace
> Peace through Jesus Christ

My hope is that these three titles become familiar to us so that we can use them as filters for our daily lives. For example . . .

Righteousness Brings Peace: In Isaiah 32:16-20 the prophet reveals to us that the work of righteousness will be peace. So if we notice that we don't have any peace in our life we need step back and ask the question, "Is righteousness at work in my life?" Another question for us to ask ourselves might be "Am I allowing the righteousness of Christ to transform me so that His peace may be established in me and around me?"

What we have to understand about the peace of God is that no matter what the circumstances may be in our life, His peace is always with us. You can have peace yet still be in the midst of trials. Jesus, the prince of peace, never was without peace, even as he was falsely accused and beaten, the peace of God was with Him. We'll be looking into this in more detail in the coming weeks.

The point here is that righteousness brings peace and Isaiah gives us a great truth about that promise.

Signs and Wonders: the conduit for peace. We find ourselves in Daniel 3 and 4 again with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. Thes men refused to bow to the statue of king Nebuchadnezzar. The penalty was death by fire. To which all three declared that God would deliver them (a statement of their faith) yet, if He didn't they still would not bow (a stand for righteousness). When Nebuchadnezzar throws them into the furnace and sees them with a fourth man and not being burned, he calls them out and says this to his people in Daniel 4:1-3 - "Peace be multiplied to you. I thought it good to declare the signs and wonders that the Most High God has worked for me. How great are His signs, and how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation."

Wow, the signs and wonder of God caused Nebuchadnezzar to declare peace over the entire nation and make a decree to worship God. Do you see how signs and wonders become the conduit through which God can establish His peace on the earth.

Peace Through Jesus Christ: In Romans 5:1-5 we read that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is only through Christ that we can experience the peace of God. But not only do we have peace with God, we get to live in the peace of God.

So in closing we can begin to see that the righteousness of Christ brings the peace of God and we are called to walk in the Spirit with signs and wonders following us so that others may enter into the same peace that you and I have received by grace and in faith.

Go out this week and be reminded of the peace you have in Christ and share that peace with some you love.