Peace or War?

Is you heart at peace?

Is your heart at war?

War clouds your vision

Peace makes your vision clear

Seek peace and pursue (Psalm 34:14)

A heart at war leaves you no clue

But to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:6)

Now the war at heart will cease

Now the love will increase

No more disturbance of peace

The pain will diminish

The sorrow will vanish

Your faith will now flourish

Your heart will be nourished

Is your heart at war?

Is your heart at peace?

All I Have

Psalm 51 is written by King David after Nathan came to him after he committed adultery with Bathsheba. There is one verse that sticks out to me and is crucial to faith in God.

"My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart

you, God, will not despise." (17)

As a believer in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit I must be able to understand and act upon this verse King David lays down. Due to God's omnipotence and omnipresence God is able to do anything and everything. So, what can we give to God? If God can do anything what can we contribute to our God's cause? King David realizes here that his spirit and heart are broken and he must present his heart to God. I must realize that the only thing that I can give to God of any value is my broken heart. We all can give God our heart. God will accept your heart regardless of its condition. God accepts David's heart even though he committed adultery with Bathsheba, got her pregnant, then placed her husband, Uriah, on the front line of his army so he would be killed, then he married Bathsheba so she did not give birth to a child out of wedlock. Despite David's wrong doings God accepted his heart as presented in Psalm 51. I must realize the same for my life and this goes for everyone. No matter what you have done, no matter what the condition of your heart is, no matter how terrible you think your actions have been, God will not despise. God will accept your heart because God loves you unconditionally. Well, what happens when God has your heart? What is the next step?

"Wash me and I will be whiter than snow" (7)

"Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." (2)

"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me... Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." (10,12)

That is what is next, Forgiveness. God washes away all your separation from him, all of your wrong doing and creates in you a pure heart. A purity whiter than snow. Once, you hand your heart to God, God will immediately begin to cleanse your heart, and forgive for your sins. God will pick you up and direct you according to the path set for you. All you have to do is give God your heart. All I have to give God, is my heart. That is all I have.

Walk Down This Road With Me

At the point when people came upon a plain in Shinar (Babylonia) they were moving Eastward in the wrong direction, the opposite direction of where God directed them to go. Also, the world had one common, universal language. Here in Babylonia these people begin to build a tower and they reasoned, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

These people were so lost, moving in the opposite direction of God's will. They are building a tower, to make a name for themselves. They are building the tower of babel to bring recognition to themselves, not to bring recognition to God. To teach the people the Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So God scattered them all over the earth and confused the language of the whole world. Seeking personal recognition, ignoring the guidance and truth of the one and only God, building for their own selfish ambition, seeking selfish instant gratification, and following their own mislead path. That is what these people were doing. They ignored God's direction and guidance. In a matter of moments they went from a people of one language building a name for themselves, to disrupted, confused, separated and speaking many different languages. From community to self-seeking. Their community was disrupted, separated. They turned their backs on God and went their own way.

Do you build your own towers? Do you seek making a name for yourself? Do you go down your own path?

I do. This is the cause of ego, self-pride, selfishness, and the death of community. This is sin.

Instead praise the Lord, build your life upon Christ, make a name for the one and only the saviour of the world, Go Down The Path Of Jesus Christ, walk beside Jesus on the road of life, let the grace of Christ fill you heart, may the light and love of Jesus pour into your heart and overflow into others. This is Unity, This is Community.

Seek and You Will Find

"A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions, and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit; these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul."

- A.W. Tozer

Seek and you will find what is inside. Your relationship with Jesus Christ is in your heart. Though reading a chapter in a christian book, doing devotionals, attending church, are great tools to help expand your spiritual growth and knowledge, none of these should be your main way to grow in your faith daily. With these as the basis of your faith this is a shallow and hollow spirituality and faith. Time spent between you and Jesus, one on one is the most important, and from my experiences the most influential and where I have grown the most in my faith. Spending time alone with your saviour should be at the core of your faith, what is in your heart what you have inside is what matters. Regardless of any facades you pose to other people to make it appear your faith is going well, the only true judge of your faith is God and ultimately God is the only one who knows what is behind that facade. Ultimately the ONLY thing that carries on from this temporary Earth is your relationship with Jesus Christ, that is it, nothing else.

The Habit of Having No Habits

I am going to share with you a daily devotional from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost For His Highest. It is derived from 2 Peter 1:8 "If these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful"

When we first begin to form a habit, we are fully aware of it. There are times when we are aware of becoming virtuous and godly, but this awareness should only be a stage we quickly pass through as we grow spiritually. If we stop at this stage, we will develop a sense of spiritual pride. The right thing to do with godly habits is to immerse them in the life of the Lord until they become such a spontaneous expression of our lives that we are no longer aware of them. Our spiritual life continually causes us to focus our attention inwardly for the determined purpose of self-examination, because each of us has some qualities we have not yet added to our lives.

Your god may be your little Christian habit— the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, "I can’t do that right now; this is my time alone with God." No, this is your time alone with your habit. There is a quality that is still lacking in you. Identify your shortcoming and then look for opportunities to work into your life that missing quality.

Love means that there are no visible habits— that your habits are so immersed in the Lord that you practice them without realizing it. If you are consciously aware of your own holiness, you place limitations on yourself from doing certain things— things God is not restricting you from at all. This means there is a missing quality that needs to be added to your life. The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and He was at home with God anywhere. Is there someplace where you are not at home with God? Then allow God to work through whatever that particular circumstance may be until you increase in Him, adding His qualities. Your life will then become the simple life of a child.

-Oswald Chambers