You speak my name softly gently, and say “come away with me my beloved. Set aside the worries and cares they are not yours to carry. “

You say, “I am your deliverance your quiet refuge your green pasture. This place of still waters and calm breezes is home. I made it for you and I as a secret place of fellowship.  Follow the beckoning call of my sweet soft voice to our refuge together. ”

I will respond to your love whispers as you draw me into sweet communion. Resting my head on your heart hearing the rhythm of life and love deep within I know this is where I belong wrapped in your arms of protection safe from all harm. 

”Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind! In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues.“

Psalm 31:19-20 ESV

A wise teacher once told me, “Faith and fear take the same energy, each involves believing that what you can’t see will come to pass.” Don’t give fear any energy!

I grew up in this physical world amidst a sea of fear and dread.  Phrases like, “lf it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all” or “There’s no rest for the weary” or “Why do the good die young?”  were drilled into my psyche for years by relatives who’d seen the desperate yearnings of their hearts broken again and again.  Never physically seeing the truth of God’s victory in the “hidden” world of the spirit.  This is how a lot of “generational” curses work down through our families.

Fear and dread of the future never worked out for my good and developed into habitual worry.  Or maybe there was an assignment of a spirit of dread from the enemy involved.  But, thank God He sent Jesus to overcome fear and dread, replacing them with faith, hope and love. And revealed Himself to me in the glorious Gospel.

Lord Jesus help us today to live in your victory over fear.  Bring to our remembrance the absolute reign you enforced over all opposition. Ushering in our entrance into your kingdom of peace.   Where we can and should rest in the assurance that is expressed in this ancient affirmation of a life without fear but rather filled with faith.

“All is well and all shall be well” 

Let’s place the energy of our hearts in the message of faith in that simple statement which places our complete trust in our heavenly Father.

The earth brings forth life from the seeds of faith hope and love.   I mean everything and everyone passes life on to the next generation.  But what exactly do we pass on as the quality of that life?  Is it strife or peace?

Chaos (strife) is a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or disarray.  It is the state of this world left on its own. Since the fall, everything decays and returns to dust, yet even in that return to dust new life is born.  So there is redemption and ultimately life and order even in the cycle of chaos.

Peace comes when Yahweh’s authority overcomes Chaos.

Stepping into the realm of Yahweh’s rule and reign brings us into the realization that peace is a place of dwelling not just a passing phase or some endless cycle.  It’s where we actively rest in the arms of Yahweh or under His wings of protection.  He is always there, at perfect peace, not surprised or rattlled by anything happening in the cosmos. 

Papa has graciously given us the ability to dwell with Him forever, so ultimate peace and tranquility is promised to those who love and seek to abide in His love.

“For it is God’s will that we hold us in comfort with all our might: for bliss is lasting without end, and pain is passing and shall be brought to nought for them that shall be saved. And therefore it is not God’s will that we follow the feelings of pain in sorrow and mourning for them, but that we suddenly pass over, and hold us in endless enjoyment.” From Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

What is our ultimate destiny? If you grab ahold of the grace extended by Jesus then it is most certainly bliss like Julian of Norwich spoke of back in the middle ages.  The trials and tribulations of this earthly voyage are but a distant memory in the glory of eternity.  Jesus himself counted all the pain and suffering of the cross to be well worth it for the glory of eternity back with Papa God along with all those who would follow Him.

Realize that Jesus is offering you, at His expense, an eternity of joy and rapture in the very presence of the Lord of Lords and King of Kings.  We’ll be welcomed in as a son or daughter of the most High with full royal privileges.  The message is not about who’s going to miss out on this and suffer eternally but who is going to accept the free gift of abundant life.   It’s not a difficult decision when one sees the bliss ahead and the option to leave suffering behind.

The “one rule” was ultimately for our good not intended as a restriction.  Staying away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the ultimate protection for the peace of mankind.   It only looks like a restriction from this side of the fall.  We are so used to having our own way that we refuse to see the supremacy of walking under the protection of His presence.  In the bliss of His perfect will for us.

To step inside grace we do need to surrender our will to His.   It is a complete change in our thinking to agree with grace that we don’t need to work to be perfect and acceptable before we can get near Papa God.  Grace makes us righteous and clean by none of our own efforts,  it is amazing, yes truly unbelievable, but that is exactly what we must believe in to transition from death into life.

The one rule turns out to be that we must fall under grace, setting aside all our works to accept Jesus’ finished work of the cross.  Thereby holding up to ridicule all the religious systems mankind had created by conquering death and the grave.  It’s as simple as changing our thinking, which is the definition of repentance.  Not parading in sack cloth and ashes or crawling through the streets on bloody knees.  Just a divinely inspired change of mind, that the truth is, we are indeed saved by the finished works of Jesus and nothing else.

What a terrible word regrets is.  It is made up of dwelling in the past, of reliving all our failures and roads not taken.  Things which could have been but yet didn’t happen. What’s the point of wallowing in self loathing, pity and sinking into depression over what could have been?

The past is gone over the waterfall and the river of life lays on up ahead it’s the way into the mountain of God.   Reliving the regrets only takes us into dark caves and the deep words of despair.  Regrets are the enemy’s tools to stop our progress on our journey.   They are the briars and brambles which hold us back.  Digging in painfully as they remind us of failures and things left undone.  We must leave those memories in the rearview mirror and refuse to keep revisiting them in the land of regrets.  It’s a terrible dark valley to be trapped in.   Our path is up the river to Yahweh, who is the true source of everything good and pleasant. 

Paul spoke of our goal, eternity in Jesus:

”Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.“

Philippians 3:12-14 ESV

Photo: Our son Micah would have been 29 today, we miss him so much!

If we are truly walking in the way of the cross, we are to be ambassadors of the Kingdom just like Paul (Zeph 6:20).  

Ambassadors are sent to a foreign land to represent the country they are from.  To bring that kingdom’s rule to the area they occupy in their host country.  They are to be accurate examples of the ruler of their home country to display the wealth and power of their homeland.   

Each consulate is a sovereign part of the country they are from.  On the grounds of that compound the law of their home country reigns supreme.  Additionally they have diplomatic immunity in the host country to perform their work without restraint or any kind of limits.

We as ambassadors must be about the business of the kingdom of heaven while we are here on earth.  Sharing the good news of Jesus and doing the works He promised we would do to a greater extent than He did while walking the earth as a man. 

So lay hold of your diplomatic immunity, step out in faith and boldness to demonstrate the revelation of Jesus in the power of His mighty works.  Bringing Peace, Love, Joy, Life, Healing, and Deliverance everywhere we walk in this foreign land.  Be an open display of the power and riches of Heaven.  Just the way Jesus infused the Kingdom into wherever He set His feet.

Isn’t it strange that unbelief always gets what it expects. It lives in the realm of broken dreams and unfulfilled promises.  When we walk in doubt and fear our expectations seem to be manifested all the time.  It is actually faith in the negative results, hope in the wrong ending.  

Unbelief is the reliance on our physical senses to the exclusion of the spirit realm.  Everything is viewed through the filter of what has happened beforehand.  What has been will always be, and everything is merely a karmic repeat of what happened in the past.  Are you getting depressed yet?

But God,

That simple statement is the key, Papa God is the monkey wrench that has been “thrown into” our physical world. You know, the normal visible world which we think we’ve figured out because that’s all there is.   He is the wild card of faith and hope, the antidote to unbelief.  It is in following Him that our hearts become filled with faith and belief in the impossible.  All the laws and rules we have observed here in this realm are subject to Him and therefore easily superseded by His will. 

Join me in letting go of unbelief and holding fast to the unlimited hope of faith in God. 

The work of grace happens within us.  Our battle is in our mind and will, where we must surrender our thinking to Jesus.  We have all these preconceived notions of how we attain to righteousness built around religious thoughts and practices. Our whole outlook is, “What do I have to do to please God”. How can I reach Him from “down here”. 

The work is setting aside the things religion has engrained in us, which is the lie actually perpetrated in the first lie, that Papa God was keeping the best from us.

From the beginning Papa provided everything needed for our life and fulfillment free from our need to do anything to earn it.  It has always been His grace that saves us, not any works that we may do.  The only work is to accept the settled fact that He came down to earth to show us His all encompassing love and obliterate the systems of religion with His unbounded grace and mercy.

Our only job is surrendering our stubborn will to accept that free gift of salvation.   No special penance, no magical prayer, no mystical path, no arduous journey, just a simple Yes, I believe you have set me free from the prison of religion.   Your grace trumps all my striving. 

What an apparent oxymoron.  Striving for peace can carry the connotation that we must confront and defeat conflict.  This can lead to forcing peace on a situation which starts to look like the conflict it is supposed to replace.

Yet there is indeed a striving which goes on between our ears.  Or as some say getting that revelation from God to travel the 18″ north from our heart to our mind.

The peace of God is a fact.  In Him there is no strife or unrest,  His Kingdom is peace and joy and rest and we are ushered into that kingdom by virtue of the finished work of the cross.  The difficulty for us is that the notion of salvation by grace is so foreign to the world system we are born into that we must catch the revelation of it and make the conscious decision to accept it for ourselves. That is where we strive,  not to make it happen ourselves but to set aside all our preconceived notions of working our way up to heaven. 

We are already accepted in the beloved.  Fully atoned for, made righteous through no act of our own.  We are indeed already at peace with our Creator as far as He’s concerned, He’s merely waiting on us to make that realization and accept it as fact in our lives.