Skip to main content

Peace be with You

John 20:19 – “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
John the beloved disciple records the words of Jesus in one of His post-resurrection appearances. In this chapter, Jesus finds His disciples in hiding behind locked doors.  They are bewildered and filled with fear.  Verse 19 in the New Living Translation reads, “That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said.”
Oftentimes we find ourselves in the same state as these disciples.  Like the disciples, we often do not understand what God is doing.  The disciples didn’t expect the One they followed to be crucified and die.  They could not see God’s overall plan of redemption.
Many times when we are transitioning from one season to another season in our spiritual journey we cannot see God’s overall plan.  We don’t understand what He is doing, and we find ourselves in a place of confusion and fear.
What the disciples of our Lord did not realize was that in just a few short days they were going to experience the first outpouring of God’s Spirit, which would give birth to the New Testament Church and launch them into powerful ministry.
When we are bewildered and we do not understand the overall plan that God has for our lives we must remember the words of Jesus, “Peace be with you.”  There may be a storm raging in your life right now, but in the midst of your storm, the Lord can suddenly come and calm your fears. His words to you today are, “Do not be afraid.”  “Peace be with you.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rebuilding the Broken Altar of Prayer

In Matthew 21: 12-13 , “ Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” Jesus made this declaration, “My house shall be called a house of prayer!”  I believe that God is calling us back to the altar of prayer.  For several weeks the Lord has dealt with me about rebuilding the broken altar of prayer in our personal and corporate lives.  If we are going to see spiritual breakthrough in our churches and communities then we must rebuild and return to the altar of prayer. Wayman Rogers writes, “The ministry of prayer is the most important of all ministries in the church.  Prayer creates the atmosphere and binds the powers of darkness so the gospel of Jesus can go forward and the church can prosper....

The Shout of a King is Among Them

Numbers 23:21 - “He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, Nor has He seen wickedness in Israel. The Lord his God  is  with him, And the shout of a King  is  among them.” In this passage of Scripture, the king of Moab had hired the prophet Balaam to speak a curse over the children of Israel.   He saw Israel as a threat to his kingdom.   Numbers 22:2-3 – “Now Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. And Moab was exceedingly afraid of the people because they were many, and Moab was sick with dread because of the children of Israel.” When the enemy sees the people of God rising up in faith, he becomes very concerned and moves to keep us from fulfilling our assignment.   We learn in Numbers, Balaam could only speak what the Lord gave him to speak.   Instead of a curse he speaks a blessing. The enemy seeks our destruction, but God!   Listen to the conversation between God and Satan in ...

The Fifth Month - Av - The Month to Hear

--> The Fifth Month – Av The Month to Hear For a number of years I have been studying and praying for insight into how the Lord moves and works in time. We learn in 1 Chronicles 12:32 that the Sons of Issachar had an understanding of the times and knew what Israel ought to do.  They were masters of the Hebrew calendar.   In Exodus 12:2 the Lord established the Hebrew calendar. “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.” The Hebrew calendar begins at Passover in the month of Nissan.  This calendar was God ordained and introduced in the Bible.   To better understand how God moves in times you can study the Hebrew calendar and the patterns that have been established in the Word of God.  Our Gregorian calendar is on a different time cycle than the Word of God. The Bible refers to the month of Av as the fifth month counting from Passover.  It corresponds to the months of ...