The Hope of Peace leads to Excellence

    I prayed Wednesday night with someone facing possible cancer and called upon the God of Peace. 

    I posted about a PTSD friend who has attempted suicide and prayed to the God of Peace. 

    On Tuesday, I expressed a disappointment I am experiencing and was reminded that to focus on God and not our disappointments. Essentially, he said to look at God’s peace, not my performance nor the lack thereof.

   The Advent of Christ’s coming again should remind us always that everything we see is temporary.

   God of Peace. There is a recurring theme when the Bible uses the phrase “God of Peace”. That theme is seeking excellence in our lives, but not for performance in order to earn peace. Rather excellence in our lives is a product as a result of the residence of the God of Peace in our lives.

   We first see the phrase “God of Peace” in Thessalonians (one of the first letters written). Paul said that the God of Peace sets us apart (that’s what sanctifies means) and our bodies, our souls and our spirits will be preserved blameless at the coming (advent) of Christ (1 Thess. 5:23).

   I love the “3:16 passages” of the Bible, and in 2 Thess 3:16, Paul says that the “Lord of Peace” will give us peace at all times and in all ways.

   Paul spoke about the God of Peace twice in Romans, once praying for the presence of the God of Peace in our lives right now (see Romans 15:33). He again invokes the “God of Peace” to crush Satan under our feet in the future.

   In Philippians 4:9, Paul encourages us that the “God of Peace” will always be with us when we seek His excellence in our lives and practice things we have “learned and received and heard and saw” in Paul’s life. And we know that it was in Philippi that Paul and Silas sang out in the dungeon after being beaten for preaching the gospel.

   Gospel of Peace. Maybe that’s why the Bible not only talks about the “God of Peace” but also the “Gospel of Peace”. Gospel means good news. Romans 10:15 (in the KJV and NKJV) says that Gospel of Peace is brought on beautiful feet because it glad tidings of good things. Paul was referring back to Isa. 52:7 as well as Nahum 1:15, both passages talk about how the proclamation of peace makes even our feet beautiful.

    Part of the armor of God is preparing our feet with the gospel of peace (Eph. 6:15). Maybe the connection of the gospel of peace and our feet is that the good news about peace is that it follows us every step of the way.

    Grace and Peace. The God of Peace reminds us of His second Coming. The Gospel of Peace reminds us of our current goings. But there is a third connection of Peace and that is with our past. Have you ever noticed that every letter Paul wrote in the Bible and both letters that Peter wrote begins with Grace and Peace. Look it up. Even John’s second epistle and the book of Revelation begins with grace and peace.

    Grace and Peace are linked with our past. The “if only’s” of our past dissolve into oblivion with God’s grace and peace. Grace literally means “gift” and peace is a gift that God gives to us at salvation. He graces us with peace in our past that we do not have to linger over our sins. Grace is from the giving, peace is from the forgiving.

    If you need peace, look to the prince of peace, the Lord of peace, the God of peace and the gospel of peace. In those, we find the gift or grace of peace.

The Hope of Power is Encouragement in the Word.

    Can you imagine what it must have been like to travel with Christ up the Mountain of Metamorphosis, or as it is commonly called the Mount of Transfiguration? 
    Peter, James and John journeyed with Jesus for three days and there was changed in appearance and also appearing with Christ was Moses and Elijah.

    While all three synoptic gospels tell of this incident by introducing it with a prophecy that some would see Christ coming in His Kingdom of God, only Mark, basing his gospel on the preachings of Peter, stated that they would see the Kingdom of God present with power! (See Mark 9:1)

    The Hope of Power’s Encouragement is linked specifically with the Latin word adventu in 2 Peter 1:16. Peter is incarcerated in a Roman dungeon, locked up for preaching the gospel by Nero. Soon the famed apostle and founding disciple of the Jerusalem church would be crucified upside down, deeming himself unworthy to die in the manner of his Lord, Jesus Christ.

      What is his emotional thermometer? What is his spiritual temperature? Does he feel powerless and discouraged in his final days? Had he given up all hope? Hardly.

      The once shifting and stumbling Simon is now rock-solid Peter. He knows his jig is up, his days are numbered and yet he waxes poetic, almost lyrical in his description of his soon departure into eternity.

      “I know that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me,” Peter wrote. “Why would I want to stay in this tent when I have an eternal 7 star accommodations waiting for me?” His earthly tabernacle would soon be upsized for a heavenly mansion.

      It is not almost comical, it is absolutely gut-checking hilarious that this once swaggering, overly self-assured fisherman even suggested to build three earthly tabernacles for Moses, Elijah and Jesus just so they could “sit for a spell” on that mountain so many years earlier.

      Trade God’s Heavenly Temple for an earthly thatched-together tent. Not even Chip and Joanna Gaines could convince that trio into a such a Fixer Downer!

      Do you see old Peter wink his eye right here in his final epistle. “As long as I am here in this feeble tent, I want to shake you until I wake you to see where Jesus went and where I am going.”

    Jesus told Peter in his earlier years that when he was old, he would be led by the hand and forced to go where he didn’t want to go. “I know I’m going to take off this tent, just like Jesus showed me,” the imprisoned Peter wrote.

    The readers of the letter knew what Peter was talking about. He and the Apostle John had preached it for years. After the Resurrection, Peter had gone back to fishing and then saw the Risen Lord.

    During a fish breakfast, Jesus restored his fallen disciple by asking him a question thrice, the same number of times he had denied his Lord before the cock crowed twice.

     Now only the rooster was cocky and Simon had eaten the crow. 
     With every probing question, Peter humbly pledged his love for his Master. He heard the charge to feed his sheep and tend the lambs.

     You see, Peter had to learn: 
Power wasn’t in the bragging.

     Courage wasn’t in the boasting.

           Hoping wasn’t in the seeing.

     The power of the Kingdom was not what He saw on the mountain of transfiguration.

     The encouragement for courage was not found in the appearing of Moses and Elijah. 
     They were not going to exchange their heavenly habitation for the thatched tent, but now Peter was soon going to leave his earthly tabernacle for an eternal temple.

     From a darkened prison cell, Peter saw a light up above. 
     “You would do well to heed the prophetic word,” Peter wrote, “like a light that shines in a dark place.”

      Hope 
          Power
              Encouragement 
are all found in the Word of God.

     “This is my Beloved Son, Listen to Him.”

     Whether booming on a holy mountain from a heavenly glory, or humbly written on a tear-stained papyrus, smuggled out and copied and translated for 2,000 years now, the Word of God is not a cleverly devised fable.

    The Hope of Power is in the Encouragement of the Word of God.

Promise Made, Promise Kept

The Hope of the Promise. That is not a redundancy of words. Hope is an unseen expected assurance, not wishful thinking. And a promise from God is something that can be counted on. As Max Lucado said in his book Unshakable Hope, God is not just a Promise Maker, He is a Promise Keeper.

            When we think of promises, perhaps what we most often think of is not promises kept, but promises broken. Perhaps from our parents, or from what should have been a trusted friend. Or from a spouse.

            Worse yet, you might be reminded of promises you have made and did not keep. Guilt. Fear. Disappointment. Anger. Cynical bitterness. Sarcasm...

            Stop!

            That is not God.

            Read this from His Holy Word.

            “God is not a man, that He should lie.

            Nor a son of man that He should repent

            Has He not said, and will He not do?

            Has He not spoke and will He not make it good?”

Numbers 23:19

            First Promise Kept at the First Coming. 

            Christ’s first advent was the greatest to date “promise made, promised kept” that God fulfilled.

John the Baptist, in his moments of despair, asked Jesus, “Are You the Expected One, or should we look for another?” When imprisoned, the baptizer’s hopes were discouraged but not entirely dashed. He knew that if Jesus was not the promised one, that He could expect another because God is and was and forever will be faithful and true.

            As far back as Genesis 3:15, the Bible teaches that a seed of a woman (literally “sperm” in both Greek and Hebrew) would crush the head of Satan. That curse against Satan was literally fulfilled in the virgin birth of Christ, the only literal seed of a woman ever recorded.

Another 3:15 passage, Galatians 3:15, also teaches about the seed (singular) of man being the promise made long ago being fulfilled. “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made… the covenant was confirmed before by God in Christ, and it does not nullify the promise. If the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise.”

The promise was also made to Sarah, “The word of promise…Sarah will have a son.” (see Rom. 9:9). Paul preached in Acts 13:23 that Jesus was the promised Son of God and Seed of David who would become the Savior of Israel and of the world. “From this man’s seed, according to the promise, raised up for Israel a Savior, Jesus.”

Isaiah’s promise in Isaiah 1:9 was reiterated in Romans 9:29 that the Seed of the Lord of Sabaoth would come to save the world.

A Second Promise Kept: The Holy Spirit.

Another Promise Kept. Perhaps the second greatest Promise that God has made and Kept came 50 days after the Resurrection. When the Holy Spirit came down, it was the down payment of the Promise of a future Advent.

“Wait for the Promise of the Father” Jesus said in Acts 1:4. “I will send the Promise,” He had previously stated in Luke 24:49.

Simon Peter and those in the upper room experienced the fulfillment of that Second Promise kept. The Holy Spirit which Jesus Himself received was poured out on them all in Acts chapter 2. “The Promise of the Holy Spirit is being poured out today and this is what you now see and hear,” Peter preached in Acts 2:33, “the Promise is for you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Peter never stopped being in awe of those two promises kept. From a dank and dungy Roman prison cell, the aged fisherman was not bitter. Not disillusioned. No fist shook toward heaven, despite the scars on his back, seeing the cruel death of his best friend James, and perhaps having survivor’s guilt when his own life was spared.

No, from the prison cell Simon wrote these words of encouragement.

The Third Promise Will Be Kept: Jesus is Coming Again!

“God has given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, and also escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

Promise made, Peter Proclaimed, and Promise Kept. Four more times the imprisoned apostle used the word promise, finishing up with this defiantly faithful and unquenchable fiery man of God preached through his pen which echoes in our Scripture readings to this day.

“In keeping with His Promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.”

And then as a nod to fellow prisoner in Rome, the Apostle Paul, Peter wrote “and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation which also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you.”