Dear friend,
Are you living an exceptional life?
Are you living a life of peace and contentment?
Do you have a calm inner assurance at all times?
If you cannot answer yes to each of these questions, I hope you will take the time to read this blog post and discover what God has for you.
If you already can say yes to each of these questions, praise the Lord! But I also encourage you to read this blog post for further edification and a deepening of your roots in Christ.
I’m going to ask a series of questions that I hope helps to search your mind and heart to discover any anxiousness there:
- Do you find yourself on edge whenever the phone rings or a text alert appears?
- Do you have a sense of impending doom? An inner sense that something bad is coming?
- Do you try to avoid certain people or places because it seems they put you immediately on edge?
- Are you constantly battling the thought that nothing is going to get better and that the world and your own life are going to continue to spiral out of control?
All of these are evidences of an unsettled spirit.
We might think that these reveal the crazy, chaotic nature of our current environment and culture and that it is because everything has broken down so much in society. We might be tempted to blame the people around us, or a toxic environment, or even the devil.
But the reality is that each and every generation has faced its own share of overwhelming circumstances. And God offers His beautiful and centering peace and presence for all people, no matter the circumstances.
The promise of God is that we CAN live abundant lives overflowing with peace, love, joy and hope. The promise of God is that we CAN have victory over meaninglessness, stress, anxiety, fear, selfishness, and worldliness.
God offers to us the possibility of a life that has a settled mind, a calm spirit, a peaceable temperament, gentle reactions, and a joy-filled attitude.
Furthermore, these are things that we do not have to “put on” (like a mask) or work up in ourselves, by frenzied effort.
These are things that God gives to us as a free gift of his grace. We are invited to receive them. And let them minister to us and bless us in supernatural ways.
Let me give you three practical tips on how to receive these from the Lord:
1. These are gifts that accompany salvation. If you call on the name of the Lord for salvation confessing your sins and turning away from your sins and bad habits/choices, God will grant you forgiveness and give you his Holy Spirit. And when you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, you also get all of these beautiful gifts that accompany His Spirit (but sometimes we don’t realize this because we don’t tune in to the Holy Spirit).
2. There is an abundance of peace and contentment present and overflowing in moments of silence, solitude and waiting. Find a prayer closet, a place to kneel and turn off all distractions and notifications. Just listen to the Lord. Perhaps read one Bible verse and then meditate on it. Or pick one attribute of God and think on it over and over again and let it bring joy and gratitude and peace to your heart
3. Let go of the things of this world. Recognize that everything around us is going to burn up. Mainstream media, social media, the things in our lives that break down and have to be insured and repaired or replaced. Let go of all of these things. Recognize that the spiritual and the eternal things are the things that will last. Invest your time and energy thinking about the eternal and spiritual things. Spend time speaking about these things with others and discovering how truly present and available they are. Take the time to rejoice in song or to give verbal acknowledgement of the goodness of God.
The point here I’m trying to make is that God wants you to have a deep inner assurance of His nearness together with a calm spirit, a peace-filled heart and mind, and an unshakableness that comes from his abiding presence in you. Do whatever you can to be with the Lord and His people and meditate on His goodness and His promises. Cast your cares upon the Lord. Reject the principles of the world and wait and see how the Lord will center and anchor you in the middle of the chaos that surrounds.
Pastor Michael Johnson 