HE IS OUR PEACE

Time with Jesus - Thursday, 27 December 2012

Hi all,

Trying to understand Jesus and the things He said is impossible. Admittedly He did His best to refine what He said down to understandable portions. Even so, much of it is incomprehensible. The Gospel of John focuses largely on the final week of Jesus’ ministry on earth. His words at that time to His disciples could only really be understood after His resurrection. Read His High Priestly prayer in John 17 and try to come to grips with it. Today we focus on His statement to His disciples that He was leaving His peace. (John 14:27) Today’s meditation seeks to “unpack” something of what He said and meant..

Blessings,

Jim & Phyllida Strickland

Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give		Time with Jesus – Thursday, 27 December 2012			Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give
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INTRODUCTION			DAILY LIGHT EVENING SCRIPTURES	HE IS OUR PEACE
Examination nerves. Who still experiences them? Who can recall them? What I recollect is that the more I knew and remembered about the subject, the less the examination nerves. I can’t quantify this in real terms, but it was true enough. I do recall opening the exam paper and reading the questions. They seemed easy enough, so I got on with it and did quite well. I also remember writing a hydraulics exam paper in 1963. One look and that was the end. I hadn’t enjoyed the subject and it showed. The only question I could answer with any degree of certainty was on the front cover. It said Name? I think it was a clear example to me of reaping what I’d sown. Another way to put it is: zero input = zero output. That would have been the end for me. But the following year I was at a different Technical School. This school didn’t include hydraulics in the syllabus. So I managed to get through for two years and ended up with my Mechanical Engineering Certificate. Even today, hydraulics continues to be a closed book. Fortunately I’ve never needed it. But I’ve never forgotten those exam nerves. Mr Bernoulli, his theorem and I, didn’t get on! What about Jesus? Did He experience a nervous reaction before the crucifixion? We know He did. The whole Gethsemane account clearly tells us He didn’t particularly want to pass that exam. If anything, He would have preferred an alternative test in a different School. Who can blame Him? If I knew that what happened to Him from Gethsemane to His death on the cross, was about to be my lot, I think I would have run away. As far and as quickly as possible! How do you prepare for something like that? I suppose a good pass from the School of Martyrs would be ideal. But Jesus had the wonderful ability of being able to focus on the present, rather on what would happen a few hours hence. Even so, He was able to sit down with the twelve; later the eleven; and encourage them. He knew He was on His way out. He knew what tomorrow would bring. In spite of this he was able to say to his disciples: 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. John 14:27 ESV For me, this is perhaps one of His greatest miracles. Less than 24 hours before His death on the cross, He encouraged His disciples. Of course He is the Prince of Peace, so He could speak to them of the peace He was leaving them. Not an absence of war type “peace”. This was a supernatural peace. One that would take them into any and every situation with very little fear. Fear and peace are not good bedfellows. It’s what they needed to hear. That’s what He gave them. Jim & Phyllida Strickland			14 So he is our peace. In his body he has made Jewish and non-Jewish people one by breaking down the wall of hostility that kept them apart. Ephesians 2:14 GW 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:19-21 NIV 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. 21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation Colossians 1:19-22 NIV 14 He wiped out the written Law with its rules. The Law was against us. It opposed us. He took it away and nailed it to the cross. Colossians 2:14 NIrV 15 He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in Himself one new people from the two groups. Ephesians 2:15 NLT 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. John 14:27 ESV	There’s such a massive difference between the Lord and men. None of us can bridge it, though we try it now and then. But He is God Almighty. He’s infinite in size. And we are almost nothing. Regardless how man tries, To get to The Creator; to close the massive gap, It seems it gets much bigger; and therein lies the trap. We think that we can do it. But we are doomed to fail. There’s no way to get to God while we’re in Satan’s jail. We know the gap originated many years before, Satan and his followers were chucked out heaven’s door. He was in rebellion; his peace with God was broken. He wondered if in Eden, the same could be awoken. So he came to Adam and called on his wife Eve. He had one objective, the woman to deceive. When he was successful and Adam disobeyed, A gap between the Lord and them instantly was made. This has grown much greater as sin was piled on sin. And it became impossible for man to enter in. Sin is so offensive. God could never stand, Anything that’s sinful, come to His right hand. People couldn’t do it. They’d be torn to pieces; Shredded to a nothingness that never ever ceases. Only God could do it. Only He could go, Into situations that man could never know. He is ultra-hostile to sin in any form. So this separation for Him was quite the norm. But He didn’t like it. The people He had made, Couldn’t ever get to Him unless His wrath was stayed. So between the Maker and His folk there was no peace. Something needed doing to cause the gap to cease! The Father solved the problem, by sending us His Son. He received the punishment that to us should be done. He became the bridge that crossed the monumental span, Sin and Satan put between Divinity and man. Simultaneously a bridge was also built Between the Jews and Gentiles. His precious blood was spilt So that all His people were likewise reconciled. Now in Christ the Saviour, we are all undefiled! Jim Strickland Written 27th December 2012