Hello and good Wednesday. Well, I survived jury duty yesterday. It actually went quite well, I only had to stay a few hours before being ‘set free.’ Jury duty is an interesting experience if you’ve never had the opportunity to do it. I had been called several times but had never been picked for a jury. As far as life experiences go, I had always wanted to serve on a jury just to observe the process. I had seen the great movie “Twelve Angry Men” and wanted to personally witness this experience. This became my new goal when I was called for jury duty. Most people tried their best to get out of it, and I tried to see if I could actually get picked. I felt like I was in the audience on The Price is Right and I just wanted to make it to contestant’s row.
The initial selection process in jury duty is all chance. In Tarrant County they call in about 150-200 people and then randomly select the numbers they need before sending them all off to the different circuit courts. Well, several years ago I finally made it to ‘contestant’s row’ and then made it to the ‘showcase showdown’ and sat on a criminal jury with 11 of my peers. It was an unbelievable life experience and a valuable case study for me in the psychology and group dynamics of humans. I enjoyed it immensely, but I had no idea it would be so emotionally engaging and demanding. I’m a pretty soft heart and it was not uncommon for me to cry during the trial. To see a life, void of God, left to its own destructive sinful nature, destroy itself as well as the innocent people around it was hard for me. I wondered if anyone had loved him enough to ever tell him about God. To then convict and send this individual to prison was tough, even in his guilt. It made me think of the guilt we have against God and how fortunate we are that God does not call a jury against us. We would all be found guilty. Thank God for His Son Jesus and His mercy.
Marge had the day off yesterday, so we celebrated with dinner and a movie. We shared one of our all-time favorite pizzas at the Mellow Mushroom here in Ft Worth and then back home to watch a movie on Amazon. (Is it just me or do you spend more time surfing Prime/Netflix to look for the movie than it takes to actually watch the movie?) We found a movie called ‘Ragamuffin’ about the life story of Rich Mullins. Rich was a great singer/songwriter and is most known for the song “Our God is an Awesome God.” Great movie and great story. He died tragically in a car accident at only 41. He lived a very humble, servant life for God even through getting famous. He was determined not to let fame and money change him so get this…He had all of his royalties sent to his church and they in turn would pay him the average US pay for that year. The rest was given away to charities and churches. He never knew how much He made. Wow. I’ve never heard anything like it. Check it out, I recommend it.
We finished up Galatians yesterday, so since we’re going straight through the Bible, we move on to the next book in the New Testament, the book of Ephesians. Paul had his greatest tenured ministry in Ephesus, staying and preaching here for a little over 2 years. Ephesus was second only to Rome as far as being a great bustling, thriving city. Ephesus was the home to the Temple of Dianna, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world and also the home to gross immorality and idol worship. Paul spent the most time with the church here and the church was spiritually sound and solid. As you’ll see in your time in the book of Ephesians, Paul’s letter is on a different plane. He is not dealing with petty disagreements, sin within the church or false teachers, as he does with other churches. He is dealing with much loftier things, God’s church.
The book of Ephesians is one of the 4 “prison letters” written by Paul while he was in prison in Rome. In case your wondering (and I think you are) the four prison epistles are Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. After writing them all in prison Paul had them hand delivered to the churches. As was custom in the day, the letters did not just stay with the intended church, they were then shared with the other churches in the region.
Well, I didn’t get very far into chapter 1 this morning before God stopped me. In fact, He stopped me at Paul’s introduction. We normally just kinda scan over the intro quickly and move on into the letter, don’t we? This morning God spoke to me in two words. Grace and Peace.
There are 27 books in the New Testament and Paul wrote 13 of them. I had not noticed before this morning, but he uses the words Grace and Peace in the introductions of EVERY single one of them. When God repeats Himself, we should stand and take notice. What’s also important to note is that in every single introduction they are in that exact order, Grace THEN Peace.
What God really called to my attention was the word Peace. If I were to stop random people on the street today and offer them a choice of absolute peace, mercy, grace, happiness, joy or patience, I think most people would leap at peace. (I might actually try this and poll some people…) In our society today we have the opposite of peace. We have turmoil and strife. We have anger and dissension. We have debt that causes busyness at jobs we hate. Because of this unhappiness, we see substance abuse and broken relationships. We see broken homes. My friends, we all long for peace. A deep peace that resonates from within. A genuine peace that infiltrates the soul. Sadly, a peace that eludes.
It’s very ironic that we so desperately seek peace in our lives and it eludes us, yet God’s Words talks about it so much. Paul alone mentions it 13 times in every one of his intros. The word peace is used 429 times total in God’s Word. How can a topic that is so prevalent in scripture be the one that is longed for the most in our world today?
The key to peace is in Paul’s intros. Notice the order in which it is listed.
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Eph 1:2
It’s second. It’s second here in the intro in Ephesians and guess what? It’s second in EVERY one of Paul’s introductions. Do you see the pattern? The message? Grace comes before peace. Without grace you cannot have the peace that you seek.
So where do I get grace? It’s simple, from the Lord Christ Jesus. You see we all inhereited a sin nature. We are imperfect creatures and therefore imperfect before a perfect, Holy, righteous God. God cannot and will not be in the presence of unrighteousness. We need to be made right before God. That’s where Jesus comes in. He came to this planet as a man, the Son of God, died on a cross and was raised three days later. His death on the cross made us right. The precious blood that He shed on the cross covers the darkness of our sins before God. When we stand before God in Heaven, He will not see our sin but the saving blood His son. As sinners, we all deserve eternal separation from God, which is Hell. But because of the amazing grace of God we don’t get what we deserve. If you confess that Jesus is Lord and call upon His name you will be saved. (Rom 10:13) My friends, that is grace. We don’t deserve it and we can’t earn it, it’s a gift of God. The greatest gift the world has ever known.
So with this grace you can know peace. You see, the world can never embrace true peace until it knows the grace of God. Grace and peace are both gifts from God, but they have an order. In order to truly experience the peace of God you must have first experienced the grace of God.
Peace of the soul doesn’t have to elude you today. It is all over God’s Word, He wants nothing more than to give you peace today. But you must first accept His grace. Call upon the name of Jesus, admit that on your own you are imperfect. Left to our own devices we are not worthy to stand before God. But through Jesus we will one day revel in the splendors of Heaven.
Think about true peace from God. Peace is freedom from this world. Freedom from strife and envy. Freedom from the bonds of materialism. Freedom to forgive. Freedom to get lost in His Word. Freedom to love in a way that only comes from God. Freedom from self. Peace and freedom is calling, accept the call.
God bless you all today, if you’re reading this, you are being prayed for.
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