Advent (day 11)
THE SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT
FOCUS OF REFLECTION: “PEACE”
Holman’s Bible Dictionary defines peace as a “sense of well-being and fulfillment that comes from God and is dependent on His presence.”
A sense of well-being and fulfillment from God means, at least in part, that we embrace all the elements of our existence as God-ordained, and therefore deem this world a perfectly safe place for us to be. It means to be at rest in the assuring sovereignty of God, much like Adam and Eve must have felt in the garden.
But we do not have a garden. We have a broken and decaying world. Indeed, but that is only part of our reality. Dallas Willard comments, “the entire posture of our embodied self and its surroundings is habitually inclined toward physical or earthly reality as the only reality there is,” which is why we are inclined to trust and hope in what is seen.
Jesus warns us along these lines, that if we seek fulfillment in temporal things like security, appearance and money, then our fate is fixed. We will be anxious. This is why Paul said that the peace of God "transcends all understanding". It simply isn’t how the world thinks, precisely because the world can’t see it.
The Advent season summons us to hope in what is unseen, the unlikely birth of a Savior and the return of our King. When our trust is in the God-reality that is beyond any risk of threat, anxiety is pointless. “It occurs,” Willard says, “only as a hangover of bad habits established when we were trusting things— like human approval and material possessions— that were certain to let us down. Now our strategy should be one of resolute rejection of worry, while we concentrate on the future in hope and with prayer and on the past with thanksgiving.”
Peace is dependent on God’s presence because there simply isn’t any other source of it. The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings of the Old Testament each bear witness to this truth, which is why they looked to God to set things right in our world, to restore the peace of Eden. The ultimate prayer for peace is, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come.”
SCRIPTURE READING: Instead of a passage, let’s take in a survey of the peace that is from God in the Old Testament -- Leviticus 26:6; 1 Chronicles 12:18, 22:9; 1 Kings 2:33; Isaiah 26:12, 52:7; Ezekiel 37:26; Malachi 2:5-6; Job 22:21, 25:2; Psalm 4:8; 29:11, 85:8, 122:6-8; Proverbs 3:17
FOCUS OF REFLECTION: “PEACE”
Holman’s Bible Dictionary defines peace as a “sense of well-being and fulfillment that comes from God and is dependent on His presence.”
A sense of well-being and fulfillment from God means, at least in part, that we embrace all the elements of our existence as God-ordained, and therefore deem this world a perfectly safe place for us to be. It means to be at rest in the assuring sovereignty of God, much like Adam and Eve must have felt in the garden.
But we do not have a garden. We have a broken and decaying world. Indeed, but that is only part of our reality. Dallas Willard comments, “the entire posture of our embodied self and its surroundings is habitually inclined toward physical or earthly reality as the only reality there is,” which is why we are inclined to trust and hope in what is seen.
Jesus warns us along these lines, that if we seek fulfillment in temporal things like security, appearance and money, then our fate is fixed. We will be anxious. This is why Paul said that the peace of God "transcends all understanding". It simply isn’t how the world thinks, precisely because the world can’t see it.
The Advent season summons us to hope in what is unseen, the unlikely birth of a Savior and the return of our King. When our trust is in the God-reality that is beyond any risk of threat, anxiety is pointless. “It occurs,” Willard says, “only as a hangover of bad habits established when we were trusting things— like human approval and material possessions— that were certain to let us down. Now our strategy should be one of resolute rejection of worry, while we concentrate on the future in hope and with prayer and on the past with thanksgiving.”
Peace is dependent on God’s presence because there simply isn’t any other source of it. The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings of the Old Testament each bear witness to this truth, which is why they looked to God to set things right in our world, to restore the peace of Eden. The ultimate prayer for peace is, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come.”
SCRIPTURE READING: Instead of a passage, let’s take in a survey of the peace that is from God in the Old Testament -- Leviticus 26:6; 1 Chronicles 12:18, 22:9; 1 Kings 2:33; Isaiah 26:12, 52:7; Ezekiel 37:26; Malachi 2:5-6; Job 22:21, 25:2; Psalm 4:8; 29:11, 85:8, 122:6-8; Proverbs 3:17
posted by Bob | 1:17 PM
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