Several have asked me to post some of my notes from my December 2 talk on peace at the Celebration Dinner, Hope, Peace and Joy. I type out all my notes and then begin deleting everything except the bare bones for an outline. I'll try to fill in the best I can as I go along.
Around the holidays everyone is telling you how to have stress less and less cluttered holidays. Stress less and less clutter is the world's vernacular for peace or peaceful holidays. Magazine articles, Internet articles and newspaper articles have all kind of tips to achieve peace. I can tell you right now, none of their suggestions produces real God given peace. I was talking to a friend several months ago and she told me all I needed to be organized was a notebook, pen and calendar. Well, I own all three of those things, so I assumed I could become organized. First you were to divide the notebook into 6 sections and then label them; gift wrapping, cards, food, tableware, decorations, and the all important To Buy section. So they give instructions like, gather all wrapping supplies together, take inventory and store them in your gift wrapping storage box...uh, I don't have one of those. Gift wrapping storage box on my to buy list. Then they tell you how to get your Christmas card list organized and you guessed it. After taking inventory write what you need on the to buy list. Christmas card storage box when onto the to buy list. The next thing just about sent me out of my mind! You take your calendar, go through all the dates where you are responsible for food, i.e. dinners, snacks, cookie exchanges, baked good for gifts, potlucks at church...then go to your notebook and cookbooks and write down every recipe you will need. Next go to your pantry and take inventory and write everything down on your to buy list that you don't have stocked up. Why did this create such a chaos and panic in me? I don't cook! I don't have a pantry, well I do if you consider crackers, peanuts and power bars staples. I would first have to go buy and stock a pantry of staples, then inventory it and then return back to the grocery store to buy all the stuff I didn't get the first trip.
Friend Organizing Me-threw me into chaos…but I know if I make the necessary changes and endure the chaos at the beginning it will iron itself out. The whole organizational process will organize me for the holidays and if I learn the principles from it, this will serve me well during the rest of the year. So that is how we are going to look at peace. First from a holiday perspective that can used in a larger context of experiencing God's peace all year.
From chaos we can come to experience God’s peace!
Peace is a huge subject to cover in 15 minutes, so I’m not even going to try. First thing though, you will never experience REAL PEACE unless you know Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
Right now all over the world there are peace talks going on. No, they are not conferences celebrating peace; they are negotiations between parties that cannot get along, parties that fight about everything and anything.
We cannot manufacture peace.
• We know the fact that peace is difficult because of the multitude of references of seek peace, pursue peace, and live in peace in the Bible.
• Peace is a fruit of the Spirit, so we know that peace is not anything we can produce on our own through determination or will power. We have to depend on God to experience His Peace!
Since this is the season of peace, we are going to look at a few things to be on watch out for that robs us from experiencing God’s peace, the peace that passes our understanding.
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