peace

What God Truly Calls Us To

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“Constantly choosing to be busy may be an unconscious attempt to have value before the Lord. To deepen requires exactly the opposite! We must slow down, choosing to spend blocks of time with God in private. We need to let go of the value we place on service, availability and busyness and take up the value God places on quietness, trust and peace (rest). We need to be aware of being too needed in any work; we are not! God calls us not foremost to “accomplish,” but to a deep relationship with Himself. A deep friendship with us as persons is what He desires most.”

– Dr. Stanford

What Does The World Give?

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What does the world give to us?

Trouble.

Disaster.

Worry.

Brokenness.

Fear…

And yet, we often settle for it. We don’t know there’s anything different. Or maybe we don’t believe it.

But He promised…

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Living life without peace?

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Are we content with living our comfortable lives with a little bit of God mixed in? Do we seek only enough peace to get through the day or the week? Or do we live in such a way that we fully depend on the Holy Spirit and others praise God because of seeing the fruit? People ought to see the transformation in our lives and respond by saying “He is Lord – He is God!”

God delights in showing up when His people are in desperate need of Him. Just read the Bible stories and you’ll see this. Living a life that is fully surrendered is the abundant life. But, too often we try to live life on our own strength and this only leads to anxiety, depression, helplessness, and hopelessness.

There is no such thing as a real believer or a real church that exists without the Holy Spirit.

Letting the Spirit lead requires repentance and daily submission to His leading, not ours. A church grows like wildfire not due to clever planning but by the Holy Spirit. The church was unstoppable in Acts because of the Holy Spirit – not because of clever and talented people.

When you live a life characterized by walking in the Spirit, that is when people see your life and praise God.

As we learn, may we grow and confess and let the Spirit change us into the people we were created to be – by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

Ask God to work so mightily in you that people take up and notice and worship Him because of the transformation in you – a life so supernatural that no one could consider giving you the glory – but Him!

We grieve the Spirit when we resist Him. Let us do this no longer. Let us invite Him to use us to bring hope to the world and glory to His name.

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.” – Gal 5:22-25

(I’m reading “Forgotten God” by Francis Chan.)