The last few verses of Psalm 66 have so much to say!
16 Come and listen, all you who fear God,
……and I will tell you what he did for me.
17 For I cried out to him for help,
…..praising him as I spoke.
18 If I had not confessed the sin in my heart,
…..the Lord would not have listened.
19 But God did listen!
…..He paid attention to my prayer.
20 Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer
…..or withdraw his unfailing love from me.
Luke 10:4-7 (<<click to read the passage)
Before I settled down to write tonight, I took a look at Facebook. Earlier I had shared some pictures and videos of the aftereffects of the heavy rain we experienced earlier this evening and I was looking at the responses.
As I flipped through some other posts, it was just so disheartening… I enjoy interacting with friends and family via Facebook and of course that is one way I can share my writings from More than Useless. I strive daily to be a purveyor of peace. I do my best to be positive and caring and to show love and support to all. But seriously, on more than one occasion in the last couple of weeks, I have considered just not reading anymore…period! I don’t get very far before hate and division are screaming in my face.
Are you a purveyor of peace? That is, do you spread peace? It is becoming more and more of a challenge in our world to be an individual of peace but an even greater challenge is to be the kind of person that can get peace out into a world where peace is really in very short supply…but there seem to be so few takers…
We should be diligent in our peace purveying, but Jesus makes it clear that we can only do what we can do. It is not something we are to stress over.
“Whenever you enter someone’s home, first say, ‘May God’s peace be on this house.’ If those who live there are peaceful, the blessing will stand; if they are not, the blessing will return to you. vs.5,6 (NLT)
Give a generous portion of peace, and either they accept it and are blessed, or they reject it and our blessing returns to us.
A portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew’s Gospel, He shared what has become known as the Beatitudes. One of them has to do with peace.
“Blessed [spiritually calm with life-joy in God’s favor] are the makers and maintainers of peace, for they will [express His character and] be called the sons of God. Matthew 5:9 (AMP)
Once more Jesus admonishes the gift of peace and the blessing that accompanies it.
Lord Jesus, we are in a world divided…and we are divided on so many fronts. Those who may have been like-minded in the past all seem to be on multiple sides of the same fence. It is maddening! But you are the ultimate purveyor of peace. We seem to be so far away for the angelic proclamation at your birth, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:14 (NIV)
May Your peace rest upon us once more. Amen.
May 18th, 2020, Mon, 9:01 pm
