Guard it

Posted by Jeffrey Smith May 19th, 2016 1,919 View 0 Comments

Job 3:25-26: What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.

Philippians 4:6-7: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

There is no one other than Jesus that our Father in heaven has ever boasted about except Job. God the father boasts about how blameless and upright Job is before the enemy. He says, " have you considered my servant Job?"

The word says that he ( Job) feared God and shunned evil. Yet what Job feared the most had come upon him. What he dreaded happened to him. 

Was it the loss of his family, his livelihood, his wealth, property, friends, respect? None of those things, yet he lost all of those things. It was his peace, his quietness, his lack of rest and his lack of turmoil that he feared the loss of most of all in this life!

How profound is that? The most blameless and upright man in all the earth most feared losing peace. He kept his integrity, he protected his love of God, and his trust in God, even in the midst of total destruction of everything visible in his life that made any sense. Money, respect, and love, all in ashes. He used a broken piece of pottery to scratch the diseased skin on his body to show us all that the remainder of shattered wealth was used to alleviate the temporary discomfort of a diseased body. Yet all of that was secondary to the loss of his peace, and quietness. His rest. 

What does that mean to us who are under grace with Jesus? It means that we must always be reminded that we have the peace that surpasses all understanding, and in that promise we must reside always. We can never be out of peace in this life without our approval. No longer can the enemy petition God the Father about causing destruction in our lives because Jesus stood in for us to bear the punishment of everything doled out upon Job. 

Yet it strikes me with such sobering realization that all things can be replaced, and even better than the original as evidenced by Job. It will be given double for our trouble as it is coined. But it is our peace that we must guard. That was above all things the most important to Job. The most blameless and upright man coveted his own peace. We have Jesus, the source of the peace that surpasses all understanding. Let us truly, truly reside in this peace at all times, and know that when Jesus replaces what the enemy has taken, that we will be made whole in a way that will debilitate the enemy to the point that he will never ever want to mess with us again. The catch is that we must never lose faith. Even if we see things around us seemingly fall apart. It is a reminder to release our thoughts and hearts to be free in the truth that we have the peace that surpasses all understanding. And if we have that, we have more than Job had, who was the most blameless and upright man on the earth.

Thank You Lord for keeping us in peace today through Jesus. We give all of our things to You and take your perfect peace with us as we travel through this imperfect world. In Jesus name, amen.