Good morning, day or evening🌞
Focus on the PEACE Christ provides and not the chaos of the day. One empowers and the other steals your strength.
Stolen strength feeds evil. Evil seems to be emboldened days. If we all take back our strength and abide in the peace of Christ, following his laws, we can overcome the evil of the day. We are all part of one body, let us focus on the peace of Christ.
During my nightly meditation, I reflected on peace—what it is and how to experience it—and God clarified this for me.
Whenever you do any of the following and trust in God’s Word—not simply say them but believe them—you will be at peace.
Prayers about peace.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Job 22:21
Agree with God and be at peace; thereby good will come to you.
John 14:27
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
Jude 1:2
May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Luke 2:14
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:9
What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
In Hebrew the phrase Shalom-Shalom, means perfect peace. It is yours if you keep your mind on the Lord. ~ Lisa Blair
“You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, For in YAH, the Lord, is everlasting strength.”
Isaiah 26:3-4 NKJV (bible.com)
Note: I extracted the following commentary from EnduringTruth.com commentary on verses 3-4.
My prayer is that each of us will experience Shalom Shalom, the perfect peace of God.
I also encourage you to pray before reading Isaiah 26:3-4, followed by reading the extract (and the full commentary). Taking the time to pray and prepare your heart can deepen your understanding and connection to the scriptures. Inviting God into your reading makes you more likely to gain insights and peace.
A good method to gain understanding is to:
Let God speak to your mind. Don’t just skim over the text to read a devotion.
Shalom Shalom is yours when you put God first.
Partial Commentary explaining verses three and four.
a. You will keep him in perfect peace: This is a wonderful promise: perfect peace. God promises that we can have perfect peace, and even be kept in a place of perfect peace.
i. In Hebrew, the term perfect peace is actually shalom shalom. This shows how repetition communicates intensity in Hebrew. It is not just shalom; it is shalom shalom, perfect peace.
ii. “Understand, dear soul, that it is thy privilege to live inside the double doors of God’s loving care. He says to thee, ‘Peace, peace.’ If one assurance is not enough, He will follow it with a second and a third.” (Meyer)
iii. Some can have this perfect peace, but it is fleeting, and they are never kept there. Others can be kept in peace, but it is not a perfect peace, it is the peace of the wicked, the peace of spiritual sleep and ultimate destruction. But there is a perfect peace that the LORD will keep us in.
b. Whose mind is stayed on You: This is the place of perfect peace and the source of it. When we keep our minds stayed – settled upon, established upon – the LORD Himself, then we can be kept in this perfect peace.
i. To be kept in this perfect peace is a matter of our mind. This isn’t so much a matter of our spirit or of our soul or of our heart. It is a matter of our mind. We are to love the LORD our God with all of our mind(Matthew 22:37). We are transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2). We can have the mind of Christ(1 Corinthians 2:16, Philippians 2:5). We are not to set our mind on earthly things(Philippians 3:19), but to set our mind on things above (Colossians 3:2). The Christian life is not an unthinking life of just doing, or experiencing, but it is also about thinking, and where we set our mind is essential in our walk before the LORD.
ii. To be kept in this perfect peace, our mind must be stayed. According to Strong’s Dictionary, the Hebrew word sawmak comes from the root “to prop,” and has the idea “to lean upon or take hold of…bear up, establish, uphold, lay, lean, lie hard, put, rest self, set self, stand fast, stay (self), sustain.” In other places the same word is translated sustained(Genesis 27:37, Psalm 3:5), or when the priest would put their hands on the head of a sacrificial animal (Exodus 29:10, 15, 19), or of the laying on of hands in other circumstances (Numbers 27:18), of being upheld (Psalm 71:6), to stand fast upon (Psalm 111:8), of being established(Psalm 112:8), of leaning upon (Isaiah 36:6, 48:2). It is fair to ask the disciples of Jesus Christ: What sustains your mind? What do you lay your mind upon? What upholdsyour mind? What does your mind stand fast upon? What is your mind establishedupon? What does your mind lean upon? To have this perfect peace, your mind cannot occasionally come to and lean upon the LORD; it has to be stayed on Him.
iii. To be kept in this perfect peace, our mind must be stayed on the LORD. If our mind is stayed on ourselves, or our problems, or the problem people in our lives, or on anything else, we can’t have this perfect peace. This is the heart that says with the Apostle Paul, that I may know Him (Philippians 3:10). In his spiritual attacks against us, Satan loves to get our minds set on anything except the LORD.
c. Because he trusts in You: This is another way of expressing the idea of keeping our minds stayed on Him. Almost always, you keep your mind stayed on whatever you are trusting. When we trust the LORD, we keep our mind stayed on Him.
i. Proverbs 3:5 expresses this same idea: Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. The word for lean in Proverbs 3:5 comes from the same root as the word stayed in Isaiah 26:3. When we trust in the LORD, we do not lean on our own understanding. To lean on the LORD is to trust Him. To be sustained by the LORD is to trust Him. To be established by the LORD is to trust Him. To be upheld by the LORD is to trust Him.
ii. The battle for trust in our lives begins in our minds. If we trust the LORD, it will show in our actions, but it will begin in our mind.
d. Trust in the LORD forever: Because of the promise of Isaiah 26:3, we are encouraged to trust in the LORD forever – and therefore to receive the blessing of the promise, perfect peace.
e. For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength: If the LORD calls us to rely on Him completely with our mind, He appeals to our mind with a rational reason why we should trust the LORD – because He is everlasting strength. It isn’t that the LORD has everlasting strength, He is everlasting strength.
i. Clarke’s comment on Isaiah 12:2 applies here also: “The word Yah read here is probably a mistake; and arose originally from the custom of the Jewish scribes, who, when they found a line too short for the word, wrote as many letters as filled it, and then began the next line with the whole word.”
Peace be with you.
Source: https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/isaiah-26/
Scripture: bible.com
Photo: LABphoto
This morning I flipping through my copy of the June edition of Our Daily Bread and stopped on the June 4, 2022 Devotional, God Focus by Adam Holz. The scripture reference is 1 Timothy 6:6-11.
I am sharing this because the title immediately captured my attention. Some 26 days later it was speaking to me and as you read this, most likely many of you. You see, I fall in the category of being a maximizer. My husband is a satisfacer. It worked well when I was younger or so I thought. Actually it kept me up nights. I was never really content. The truth is, I was always envious of my husband who was as a satisfacer and was content with life as it was, not to overlook the fact that he slept well. There is a saying that I guess satisfacers understand and live, ‘let go, and let God’. Others of us hear it, but are not ensconced in it.
In delving into my past, I now realize you can be a satisfacer, content with what you have and where you are in life and still pursue the path of your God given destiny. Wanting more is not wrong if you do not allow it to govern your life, as the money pleasers in the Bible learned being driven by greed and the need for attention is nothing more than an albatross around your neck.
It is time for me to transition from being a maximizer, always seeking more, perfecting more, and needing more and begin to open my life to being a satisfacer. How many of us are loosing time being maximizers? In looking back being a maximizer caused me to loose time, and the enjoyment of life. When you are a maximizer you are in the maximizer prison, striving for more and missing out on life. As you read this, think about my last post, do you need to view life through a new lens, a new perspective? Is it time to look through our makers eyes as Paul was instructing Timothy to consider. Is contentment all you really need?
EXCERPT, Adam Holz
When I was shopping for engagement rings, I spent many hours looking for exactly the right diamond. I was plagued by the thought, What if I miss the best one?
According to economic psychologist Barry Schwartz, my chronic indecision indicates that I am what he calls a “maximizer,” in contrast to a “satisficer.” A satisficer makes choices based on whether something is adequate for their needs. Maximizers? We have a need to always make the best choice (guilty!). The potential outcome of our indecision in the face of many choices? Anxiety, depression, and discontent. In fact, sociologists have coined another phrase for this phenomenon: fear of missing out.
We won’t find the words maximizer or satisficer in Scripture, of course. But we do find a similar idea. In 1 Timothy, Paul challenged Timothy to find value in God rather than the things of this world. The world’s promises of fulfillment can never fully deliver. Paul wanted Timothy to instead root his identity in God: “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (6:6). Paul sounds like a satisficer when he adds, “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that” (v. 8).
When I fixate on the myriad ways the world promises fulfillment, I usually end up restless and unsatisfied. But when I focus on God and relinquish my compulsive urge to maximize, my soul moves toward genuine contentment and rest.
Reflect – Would you say you tend to be a content person? Why or why not? How do you think your relationship with God affects your overall contentment in life?
Pray – Father, help me to remember that only You can fill my soul.
Insight – One of the most misquoted statements in Scripture is 1 Timothy 6:10: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” Notice that money itself isn’t the root of evil, but when it becomes the object of our love, that’s when the problems begin. Because money is so seductive, Jesus addressed this issue at the launch of His public ministry. In the Sermon on the Mount, He spoke of the value of pursuing treasure in heaven rather than money. Why? Matthew 6:21 explains that “where [our] treasure is, there [our] heart will be also.” Jesus also addressed a primary reason we seek security in money—worry. He reminded us that the God who cares for “the birds of the air” values us and can be trusted to provide for our needs (vv. 25–27).
I highly recommend downloading the Our Daily Bread App from your App Store or visiting their Website – https://odb.org/. It is a great tool to begin your day.
~ St. Frances of Assisi
Where there is peace and meditation, there is either anxiety nor doubt.
Serenity is defined as being calm, peaceful, unruffled. Peace is defined as harmony, stillness, silence. They are inextricably woven. When I experience serenity, I am experiencing a peaceful, silence. A calm engulfs me, I experience the peace that is greater than our understanding. It is beautiful. The best way I can describe it is like floating in space, no worries, no thoughts trying to anchor me to earth (the problems of the day). It is creative to some degree. But most of all, it is experiencing God’s love. It is though faith that we can experience His love and His peace.
We experience God’s love through faith. We have been justified by faith. Faith offers a number of attributes to Christians if we choose to ascribe to His will and His way. Romans 5:1 tells us that because we have faith, we have peace. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Bible refers to serenity as inner peace, the term serenity does not appear in the Bible, the Bible refers to inner peace. I use them interchangeably. When I experience serenity, I experience inner peace. My favorite scripture is John 14:27. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
The Holy Spirit who dwells in us informs us that we should not worry. When do we worry most, when does it seem to intensify to the point of keeping us awake all night? For most it is just before bedtime when we should let go of the anxiety, and deadlines of the day’s events or hardships and focus on rest, instead we focus on the upheaval of the day’s events. Psalm 4:8 is our instruction to let go, to find peace and serenity in the Lord. It reads, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
God emphasizes the need to identify His peace in our lives. Daniel 10:19 expresses this in his writings when he stated His command to Daniel and all of His children. “And He said, ‘O man greatly loved fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.’ And as He spoke to me (Daniel) I was strengthened and said, ‘Let my Lord speak, for you have strengthened me.’ We are all members of Daniel’s family, what God told Daniel is the same thing He is telling us. ’O man greatly loved fear not, peace be with you…’ Let serenity reign in your life, seek the peace that God provides to all of His children. Seek and you will find. Ask and it will be given to you.
Saint Padre Pio Pietrelcina of the Philippines (1887-1968) wrote – “Peace is the simplicity of the heart, serenity of mind, tranquility of soul, the bond of love.”
”For me, it is essential to have the inner peace and serenity of prayer in order to listen to the silence of God, which speaks to us, in our personal life and the history of our times, of the power of love.” ~ Adolfo Perez Esquivel
References: Online Dictionary; Scriptures-Good Housekeeping Magazine; everyday power.com/serenity-quotes
We must release anxiety and fear to receive God’s peace in our lives.
~ Lisa Blair
The conditions leading to peace are explained in Philippians 4:6. God’s peace is achieved through prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving. The peace is associated with releasing anxiety and fear, handing them over to God, who will then replace the void caused by releasing anxiety and fear with His peace. You cannot receive His peace if you are consumed with anxiety and fear. His peace is conditional. You must release the cause for anxiety and fear to receive the Lord’s peace. He promises peace to those who believe (have faith) and overcome being fettered by anxiety and fear. Further, the release rests on one’s ability to shift from what we see with our eyes (those things around us)* to what we know in our hearts to be true. God ensures peace to those who welcome Him into our hearts.
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” ~ Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV
“for we walk by faith, not by sight.”
2 Corinthians 5:7 ESV
Associated Scripture References:
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20 ESV
“And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”
Mark 9:23 ESV
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV
Resource – Bible.com
Photo – Dave Hoefler, Unsplash
Lisa’s Daily Inspirations 