"The Pace of Peace" -2

"Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem." (Psalms 122:2)

  Just to clarify something important, that closing Scripture is the foundation by which peace is made unmovable; in other words, this is not something that can be touched by doubt or logic, it is what it is because it is of God! That said, the other main point of this verse is the word, "stand." We must stand for something or we will fall for anything! We stand for Truth! Those that are headed towards destruction will not see the truth, and as my mother use to say, "Misery loves company." We must stand for the Truth we know to be the truth, in the midst of all opposition, and in spite of all insult and slander. Things are most likely gong to get very tuff on the church; more and more people are gong to show their opposition to the Truth; and as you well know, the opposition can get very loud and very violent. Add to that those that do not teach or hold to the message of the cross, but instead teach worn and fuzzy doctrine that accepts all the current trends as normal living, things are going to get very hard between parents and their children, coworkers, and even friends you have known forever. This is where the pace of peace needs to have a firm foundation by which we are able to stand, no matter how fast and critical things might get around us. It is not that hard to get discouraged, especially if we might be focused upon the weakness and failures of our own walk. Isn't that what the devil loves to use against us, to show us what a terrible believer we are? That is called working on our doubt! We might doubt that we are actually saved because we can't ever get this thing called righteousness to work! Please, don't we get it; it is not our righteousness that saved us, and it is not our righteousness that will continue to keep us saved! Why were the Jews so offended by the message of the cross? We need to understand that pride is something that wants to have it a certain way; if you go against that way, then you are an offense to the way they think it should be; everything you represent is just plain foolishness. I think Paul sums this up pretty clearly...

"But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, "Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not: break fourth and cry, that thou travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath a husband." Now we, brethren, as Issac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? "Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman." So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Galatians 4:26-5:1)