God's prescription for God's Peace:
Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!
Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.
Be anxious for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4: 6,7)
I call this passage my “emotional health” passage, because “mental health” IS emotional health. We see a stunning promise, preceded by some gentle conditions. If you’ll indulge me, I have a few thoughts about these verses – nothing cerebral, mind you. I have been living these words lately, not merely memorizing them or pondering them. I am experiencing these realities in fresh ways.
We’re told that the peace of God, a peace that surpasses our human capacity to obtain , has ultimate and final power to guard our heart and mind through Jesus. That word “guard” means both to protect from hostile invasion – to keep evil outside the walls - and to keep what is inside the walls from “taking flight”.
Enemies kept out; mind and heart kept safely inside.
This tells me two things right away – my thoughts and emotions are under threat of hostile invasion. So are yours. If the danger were not real, I would need no guard. No one is immune to lurking invaders, ever seeking to rob us of our sense of wholeness, and to vandalize our relationships with others, marring whatever beauty that formerly existed.
Secondly, I also need supernatural help to keep my thoughts inside the guarding walls of God. Without Him, I could, quite literally, “lose” my mind. Without the ever watchful vigilance of a Peace outside myself, a peace surpassing my human ability to obtain, my mind could “take flight” on me.
Just a few prerequisites exist – gentle admonitions. Do you really want supernatural peace? How badly do you need it? Are you willing to take a few simple steps towards it?
The first step is to “rejoice in the Lord always”. No one can rejoice in the Lord “always” without always gazing at His character and nature, and His character and nature were summed up and fully expressed in Christ. Jesus’ life, His finished work on the cross, followed by His powerful resurrection reveal realities so profound, I could meditate on these things “always”, every day, for the rest of my life, and not exhaust the possibilities for celebration and transformation.
If you are sitting under preaching that exalts Christ, that paints consistent pictures of the beauty of His grace, and repeatedly brings you THE good news (not just “any” good news) – you are among the blessed minority. Rejoicing in the Lord “always” will come considerably easier to you, when you are always confronted with the gospel.
The next condition to receiving this promise of a guarding peace is a no brainer. If there is no peace in our relationships, there is no peace in our minds. This next step has everything to do with relationships. I can’t resist how Eugene Peterson worded this verse in his paraphrase, “The Message”:
“Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them.”
This is such common sense! If the saints of God would follow this one admonition, there would be far fewer offenses. There would be much less tension, and no difference of opinion would be insurmountable. Friendships would flourish, and the peace of God would guard them – keeping the vandals firmly outside our walls. We could relax with one another….trust the Jesus in one another. There would be no need to resort to convoluted manipulation, no room for affection to grow cold. Our love of the brethren would be bursting with sincerity.
Many can quote Philippians 4:5 – few endeavor to live in it. And we wonder why we don’t experience peace.
The final steps are simple – but don’t confuse simple with “easy”. We’re told not to be anxious about anything, but rather to use every reason to worry as an excuse to ask God for help. At this point in my life, if I were to take every anxious thought, and turn it into supplication, I would truly fulfill the call to “pray without ceasing”.
But it isn’t just prayer that brings supernatural, guarding peace. Somehow, thanksgiving is transformational. A grateful heart has power to put every anxious thought into perspective. Gratitude alone will change your life, and mine. It will scoop us out of our depression, it will get us up out of our beds, it will inspire us to kiss our spouse and mean it, it will make us aware that to have one friend is a gift beyond all measure – a gift to be held close to the heart.
I’m thinking that God’s prescription for God’s peace is somehow a small reflection of how the Godhead lives. God is saying, “Do what I do. I rejoice in the Son. The Spirit rejoices in the Son. The Son rejoices in the Father. I am on the side of the saint, always. If I am for you, who can be against you? Why not imitate me, and be on someone’s side for a change? It might be more fun to be “for” someone, instead of “against” something. I, the Lord, am angry with the sinner – I will never be angry with a saint. I am at peace with you, so be at peace amongst yourselves. I am near you, so draw one another near in your hearts. I, the Lord, never experience lack or need or emptiness – thus I do not know anxiety in any form. Come to Me with your empty cup, and I will become to you both your portion AND your cup."
Such Shalom! Such freedom!
I need the peace of God. The peace in which the mysterious Trinity eternally dwells is unruffled, unthreatened, relaxed, relating, healthy and whole and happy. That’s God. It stuns me past expression to realize that I can dwell in that same peace.
It. Is. Available.
My "Baby" Turns 16 !
Yesterday, March 11th, Isaac (the baby of the family) turned sixteen. How is it, that my youngest is that old?
He opened his gifts from the family earlier in the week, and a few more gifts yesterday morning...a hamster and tricked-out cage from Sarah (Isaac named the little guy "Rhino"), clothes and "cool" sunglasses from Hannah, more clothes from brother Josiah, and a new cell phone/MP3 player from mom and dad.
Then, we invited the youth group to our home, yesterday evening, and treated them to a bonfire, pizza, and birthday cake.
Today, I recover. ::smile::
He had been waiting for this all morning...
A Card from Hannah...
Opening his gift from mom and dad (who is looking on, with obvious fatherly love...)
The little boy still peeks out of the face of the near-man...
Friends Kevin and Phillip, at the youth group gathering, at our house last night...
SOME of our guests, packed in our dining room (there were more teens behind me!)
"Make a wish!"
Icing is the best part, you know...
The "Baby"...
He opened his gifts from the family earlier in the week, and a few more gifts yesterday morning...a hamster and tricked-out cage from Sarah (Isaac named the little guy "Rhino"), clothes and "cool" sunglasses from Hannah, more clothes from brother Josiah, and a new cell phone/MP3 player from mom and dad.
Then, we invited the youth group to our home, yesterday evening, and treated them to a bonfire, pizza, and birthday cake.
Today, I recover. ::smile::
He had been waiting for this all morning...
A Card from Hannah...
Opening his gift from mom and dad (who is looking on, with obvious fatherly love...)
The little boy still peeks out of the face of the near-man...
Friends Kevin and Phillip, at the youth group gathering, at our house last night...
SOME of our guests, packed in our dining room (there were more teens behind me!)
"Make a wish!"
Icing is the best part, you know...
The "Baby"...What Does God Give? (On an Almost Wordless Wednesday)...
Ps 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
Today At My House...
The bedclothes got changed out from fall/winter, to spring/summer today. Ahhhhh! 
Spring, outside my window...
A carpet of fairy-flowers!
Our Tennessee state flower (the iris) pushing up through the soil
The promise of things to come
Sunshine and poetry
The bluebirds have nested here!The Standard Has Been Raised Higher...
I understand those in the body of Christ who, through bad past experiences, or their own secret sin, are anxious about the grace message - nervous that suddenly, everyone is going to go around sinning with gleeful abandon. Or even sinning with slightly less guilt. Guilt is one of the best manipulators known to man - a very effective, though temporary, behavior modification tool, is it not?
One of the things I hear is that, "Christ raised the standard - therefore grace raises the standard of behavior, it never lowers it!"
You are exactly right.
Listen. Few people hate sin more than a pastor (and his wife). Few people have seen the ravages of it the way we have. Because of the sacred nature of "clergy confidentiality", we know stuff about people that no one else knows. My husband knows things that I will never know. He will take certain information about people to his grave - it was spoken to him in confidence. We've seen things we can't talk about - so whatever you have heard about from us....it probably isn't the half of it. Rest assured of that. We hate sin.
We'd be the last people to encourage home-wrecking, body- wrecking, relationship- wrecking behavior. But guilting people out of it will only suffice them in going right back to it, eventually. Manipulation and control only go so far, in the human spirit. Though seemingly effective, they are the poorest motivators in existence.
So yes, absolutely. Jesus "raised" the standard.
He made it absolutely unattainable. He made it impossibly high. He preached to those under the law as though they were....those under the law. He put the goal so far out of reach (light years away from their grasp!) that they would need some other recourse than their willpower.
According to Jesus, if a man glances a woman's way, with any inclination towards thinking she's hot....he is an adulterer. If I decide that a brother is an idiot, I am in danger of hellfire. (What's that smell????)
If I detest him, I am a murderer.
Let me tell you....I desperately need an old testament "city of refuge" (where "accidental murderers" could flee for safety) because I find myself detesting certain people - even a few so called Christians I've known. (Uh....no one in my church.) I also have days where I am convinced all the world are idiots except for me and my husband, and he is questionably wise. I have days like that. And don't think I don't mean it. I do. Which means the flames of hell are one-eighth of an inch from my behind.
If you think you can meet the so-called "higher standard of grace"....you are an....idiot.
::cough::
There I go again. See? I need a city of refuge today, I need a saving from hellfire, and I have not even had my lunch yet. This day is not over.
Thank God, Hebrews 6 says this: ...that we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast...
Don't think for one minute that those Hebrews did not know exactly what Paul meant when he talked about fleeing for refuge. Oh...they knew.
Christ - my refuge from my insufficiency. Christ, my substitution. His obedience to that impossible standard has become MY obedience. There simply is no other way to look at it. If that makes some people apply grace incorrectly - that is a reflection of their own unbelieving heart. I refuse to modify the beauty of the gospel to suit fallen, human idiots.
There I go again.
One of the things I hear is that, "Christ raised the standard - therefore grace raises the standard of behavior, it never lowers it!"
You are exactly right.
Listen. Few people hate sin more than a pastor (and his wife). Few people have seen the ravages of it the way we have. Because of the sacred nature of "clergy confidentiality", we know stuff about people that no one else knows. My husband knows things that I will never know. He will take certain information about people to his grave - it was spoken to him in confidence. We've seen things we can't talk about - so whatever you have heard about from us....it probably isn't the half of it. Rest assured of that. We hate sin.
We'd be the last people to encourage home-wrecking, body- wrecking, relationship- wrecking behavior. But guilting people out of it will only suffice them in going right back to it, eventually. Manipulation and control only go so far, in the human spirit. Though seemingly effective, they are the poorest motivators in existence.
So yes, absolutely. Jesus "raised" the standard.
He made it absolutely unattainable. He made it impossibly high. He preached to those under the law as though they were....those under the law. He put the goal so far out of reach (light years away from their grasp!) that they would need some other recourse than their willpower.
According to Jesus, if a man glances a woman's way, with any inclination towards thinking she's hot....he is an adulterer. If I decide that a brother is an idiot, I am in danger of hellfire. (What's that smell????)
If I detest him, I am a murderer.
Let me tell you....I desperately need an old testament "city of refuge" (where "accidental murderers" could flee for safety) because I find myself detesting certain people - even a few so called Christians I've known. (Uh....no one in my church.) I also have days where I am convinced all the world are idiots except for me and my husband, and he is questionably wise. I have days like that. And don't think I don't mean it. I do. Which means the flames of hell are one-eighth of an inch from my behind.
If you think you can meet the so-called "higher standard of grace"....you are an....idiot.
::cough::
There I go again. See? I need a city of refuge today, I need a saving from hellfire, and I have not even had my lunch yet. This day is not over.
Thank God, Hebrews 6 says this: ...that we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast...
Don't think for one minute that those Hebrews did not know exactly what Paul meant when he talked about fleeing for refuge. Oh...they knew.
Christ - my refuge from my insufficiency. Christ, my substitution. His obedience to that impossible standard has become MY obedience. There simply is no other way to look at it. If that makes some people apply grace incorrectly - that is a reflection of their own unbelieving heart. I refuse to modify the beauty of the gospel to suit fallen, human idiots.
There I go again.
My Other Life...
Okay...so I am not always reading my Bible and scribbling footnotes to almost every verse. In my other life, I am a Scottish Penny Wedding Planner. (Go on...ask me about Scottish Penny Weddings!) Here is a tiny slice of my day (trust me...a very tiny slice...this doesn't show the half of it...the EIGHTH of it...will I make it to May 15th?)
"Where's the Tartan plaid ribbon?"
A pew, or in our case "row" marker...one of six. Made of peonies, in bloom mid-May, hydrangea, and Scottish heather...I made it myself. ::perky sniffff::
The mess that is constantly on my dining room table...
A bridesmaid's dress - the wedding will be "jewel toned"This "So Great a Salvation"
So let's not even call it "grace". Even though the word "grace" is used more than one hundred twenty times in the New Testament, if it seems like overkill to hear me refer to the term "grace" so often, let's just lay that word aside. Let's call it "the gospel". Let's say that this "gospel" is meant for daily living, from the time I am saved until the day I die, this gospel is the power of God unto salvation...I am saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved, and "so great a salvation" it is!
This power is only as real to you as it is effective in you. Power is not a concept, it is active and living. "Energy" is the ability to do work, and Paul said that God's work was at work in him mightily. This work is that finished work of Christ. You'll have something to show for this work that God does!
We are so complete, in Him! More than a theoretical completeness, it is a completeness that makes you so rich in God, so fulfilled, you become an easy person to live with or be with.
We'll never outgrow our need to study this gospel, apply it, savor it, allowing it to come alive in us. This gospel is only as powerful in you, as it systematically touches your every insecurity, meets you at your most gaping inadequacy, and informs your daily decisions. It is active in you, to the direct proportion that you find yourself enabled to love the brethren, and I do not mean the ability to be patronizing - I mean actually seeing others, in some real way, as being better than yourself.
If you find yourself stuck in the same old insecurities, still struggling with an overwhelming sense of being inadequate as a wife, mother, daughter, or friend; if you find that God can change your eternal destiny, but He can rarely change your DAY, if you find yourself passionless in your marriage - or if you are someone who kicks people to the curb who disagree with you on incidentals...your heart becoming guarded and cold and distant....ah. That is not the gospel. The gospel is better than that, happier than that, fuller than that. Others can have their issues, but you don't have to have them. There is no need for such angst. You need a good gospel foundation, still.
I need it. I want it, I need it, and since I hunger and thirst for it, I am, over time, being filled.
Our good friend and mentor Neil Silverberg (http://www.ezraproject.org/ wrote a beautiful song, long ago, that encapsules this whole thing:
In the gospel
I have found all that I need!
Oh, in the gospel
If I only would believe,
Mercy flowing down from heaven
Oceans of His love!
I can't believe that the gospel's for free!
I can't believe what He started in me!
If I had ten thousand years to proclaim the gospel
Praise His name!
Regardless of how many years I have walked with the Lord, I stand in need of a Savior. I have areas of my life that deeply need to be touched by the power of the gospel.
Now. Let's go back to the word, first used in the New Testament by John, the disciple whom Jesus loved....the disciple closest to His heart (this is no coincidence!). Let's return to the word used by the great Apostle Paul:
Grace.
This power is only as real to you as it is effective in you. Power is not a concept, it is active and living. "Energy" is the ability to do work, and Paul said that God's work was at work in him mightily. This work is that finished work of Christ. You'll have something to show for this work that God does!
We are so complete, in Him! More than a theoretical completeness, it is a completeness that makes you so rich in God, so fulfilled, you become an easy person to live with or be with.
We'll never outgrow our need to study this gospel, apply it, savor it, allowing it to come alive in us. This gospel is only as powerful in you, as it systematically touches your every insecurity, meets you at your most gaping inadequacy, and informs your daily decisions. It is active in you, to the direct proportion that you find yourself enabled to love the brethren, and I do not mean the ability to be patronizing - I mean actually seeing others, in some real way, as being better than yourself.
If you find yourself stuck in the same old insecurities, still struggling with an overwhelming sense of being inadequate as a wife, mother, daughter, or friend; if you find that God can change your eternal destiny, but He can rarely change your DAY, if you find yourself passionless in your marriage - or if you are someone who kicks people to the curb who disagree with you on incidentals...your heart becoming guarded and cold and distant....ah. That is not the gospel. The gospel is better than that, happier than that, fuller than that. Others can have their issues, but you don't have to have them. There is no need for such angst. You need a good gospel foundation, still.
I need it. I want it, I need it, and since I hunger and thirst for it, I am, over time, being filled.
Our good friend and mentor Neil Silverberg (http://www.ezraproject.org/ wrote a beautiful song, long ago, that encapsules this whole thing:
In the gospel
I have found all that I need!
Oh, in the gospel
If I only would believe,
Mercy flowing down from heaven
Oceans of His love!
I can't believe that the gospel's for free!
I can't believe what He started in me!
If I had ten thousand years to proclaim the gospel
Praise His name!
Regardless of how many years I have walked with the Lord, I stand in need of a Savior. I have areas of my life that deeply need to be touched by the power of the gospel.
Now. Let's go back to the word, first used in the New Testament by John, the disciple whom Jesus loved....the disciple closest to His heart (this is no coincidence!). Let's return to the word used by the great Apostle Paul:
Grace.
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