God is the source of peace, love, joy, and friendships along with blessings
We are given the reminder that God is the source of all good things, from peace to joy t blessings, to anything that is good, God is the source of it. So often though, when tend to forget that from time to time and try to find joy and peace from within a world that is nothing but chaos and despair. We will try to find happiness in material things and possessions and when that doesn’t work, we buy more and more hoping it can satisfy a craving in our souls that only Jesus himself can satisfy. It is only when we have tried all that the world has to offer that we then turn to Jesus in order to satisfy us with the love, joy, peace, and rest that our souls desperately cry out to us to obtain by not this world. We are told numerous times throughout the psalms, that the psalmist said to God for his “…light of your face shine upon us, O Lord. You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety” – Psalms 4:6-8. We also are not promised an easy life when we start walking with God, the psalmists states ‘Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer’ and ‘He listens the split second I call to him’ .
Seeking God is how our souls will obtain relief, rest, and peace from God; a delicacy that the world itself cannot and will not ever obtain as long as the enemy roams on it. In order to obtain this peace and rest, we must first go to a quiet place and open our hearts to God by either prayer, meditating on his word, and/or reading his word. This will allow our souls to find his heart and our heart to know his heart in an intimate way in which it can know that it is loved, valued, worth something, and to find his will for our lives. We are given 8 ways in order to find God’s love, favor, peace, and joy that Jesus gave in the sermon on the mount in order to bring us up to God to live for and to please him and to experience the good things he has for us. These may seem odd to a lot of people because the world would want you to gain power in the wrong ways and to over-work yourself along with not helping people and only to selfish.
These eight ways of living Jesus gives us is how we can obtain God’s favor and blessing. These ways show how we are to live and which are completely contradicting to the way the world wants us to live for itself and then for ourselves. We are told to realize we are spiritually poor and weak without God and know that we need him for everything, we are told to mourn the sins we have committed and then to also mourn the condition of the world. We are also instructed to be content with ourselves and to show love and compassion to everyone we encounter; in a sense it means to be tamed or “broken” in order to love others, not actually broken, just tamed and not arrogant. With this, we are also to give forgiveness to others despite what the world may say or what they have done to us, doing this shows that we do not let the world’s influence of unforgiving to settle in our hearts. Jesus instructs to be pure in heart, mind, soul, and strength, to be pure all around since being pure in heart will lead to pure thoughts and pure actions; vulnerability is also a way of showing purity to others allowing to know they can open us to us.
The last one from this sermon is to be a peacekeeper and peacemaker. We are called to do this, keeping the peace and helping those with conflicts to come to a peaceful resolution. We are told to not make conflict, to gossip, or to instigate fights or arguments but instead to do the opposite. Jesus wants us to keep the calm and remain peaceful so when everything around seems to be falling apart, we can that peace from Jesus to help others. And finally, let your soul and spirit thirst and be hungry for God and his word, do not extinguish its desire to want the love of God. This is your souls way of wanting to know its creator, we may think we have full control, in reality, our soul with have longings that we did not ask for and one of them, if you do not ignore it, will be to know and find God’s love. It’s in this way that it will know it’s worth and value for this life and to help you find God and to know his will, love, peace, and joy that he wants to give you.
So, in conclusion, God is the source of all things in life, from good too bad to the in between. The way we see them and pray to God about it determines how we will live the life he has given and then to find the life he desires us to have. God will lead us with his peace and love, so follow his peace and love that you find and let him guide you and know that yes we will experience persecution, however, God will be right with us. Trust God with everything, through the good, through the bad, and through the persecution and know he will be right with you protecting you along the way. With God, know everything will be Okay, Amen!