This what God says in Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear? We find these incredible thoughts of God in His Word. What God thinks & what He says are exactly the same.
Jesus said His words would never disappear they are eternal. If Jesus was standing in front of you speaking, you would not get anything except the Word of God. Jesus & His Word are the same yesterday, today & forever.
We need to renew our minds to the Word of God. We do this by absorbing the Scriptures, so we get into us what God thinks about situations. What does He say about fear? About sickness? About lack? About the abundant life He wants us to live? When we hear what God says, we can start to say the same, & that brings our thoughts in line with His.
The Bible is the greatest faith book, the greatest health book, the greatest prosperity book, the greatest miracle book, ever written. Whatever we need it is there. It contains God’s answers for any problem we face~answers to fear, discouragement, depression, failure, inferiority & much, much more.
The apostle Paul says in Colossians 3:16 NKJ) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly If you let the Word have its home in your heart & mind, it will give you insight & intelligence & wisdom. Let God’s Word dwell in you richly, then you will see the difference in your life!
We must give the Word first place in our lives, whether it is in our homes, our marriage or at work. Let God & His Word be our soul’s vital necessity.
When we get the Word of God into our mind, it starts to play on the T.V screen of our heart. It becomes real to us that the picture rises up on the inside to dominate the flesh & overtake our life. The Bible is the T.V guide we use to tune in to the channels where God’s answers for our needs are~our T.V guide for relationships, for healing, for finances, for marriage & family, for every area of
life. It is through the Word of God that we seek God’s face & know His ways.
God’s Words are living & powerful, but they don’t get into us automatically. We have to do something to take hold of them in Proverbs 4:20, a father gives his child some important advice: My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words.
This Father is passing on wisdom to his child, but the child has to do something to receive it. He has to listen & to pay attention to it.
God our heavenly Father says the same thing to us. He says listen to My words~don’t ignore them. Listen to them, take them in, agree with them, do them for verse 22 says for they bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body.
The best way to listen to the Word of God is to hear yourself say it that is to speak it out aloud. This is a fundamental principal of faith
Rom 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. When we hear the word of life coming from our own mouths, the Holy Spirit will use them to reprogram our minds & reshape our heart.
Faith grows by hearing the Word of God constantly. The quickest way to grow in faith is to hear yourself saying the Word, meditating on it, muttering it & affirming it. Scriptural meditation is simply saying & thinking what God says. A bit like a cow chewing its cud, you go over it, ponder it, think about, it speak it, again & again...until it gets down into your spirit & The Holy Spirit gives you personal revelation of its truth.
James talks about the power of words, he says our tongue is like the rudder of a ship. And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. 5 In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.
These verses teach us about the power of the tongue. There is power in the tongue indeed, for good or evil. We can bless ourselves or curse ourselves by the way we speak. When we bless, we speak well of; When we curse we speak evil of. By the words we are the pilots of our lives, & we have the power to direct our course by the things we say. We need to set our mouth in the right direction. What we say is the key that opens the door to our lives.
Our faith will be no higher than our words, what we speak is what we become. What we saturate ourselves with, whether words of life or words of death will shape what we become.
So say what God says about you. Not what the world is saying. Not what the television or the newspapers are saying. Not what your spouse or your bosses are saying. & not what your own subconscious habits are saying. Listen to God’s words, & give attention to your own words by speaking God’s words. Renewing your mind is not just about what you say, of course. It’s also about what you believe in your heart.
1 Cor 9:25 AMP)Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things. They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither.
Those of us who intend to run the race to win must conduct ourselves temperately & restrict ourselves in all things. We cannot expect someone else to make us do what is right. We must listen to the Holy Spirit & take action ourselves.
Paul said in verse 27 he buffeted his body. He means that he disciplined it because he did not want to preach to others, tell them what they should do & fail to do it himself. Paul was running the race to win! He knew he could not develop his potential without bringing his body, mind & emotions under control.
Self discipline is essential to the Christian life. Unless we discipline our minds, mouths & our emotions, we will live in ruin. Unless we learn to rule our tempers, we can never achieve the success that rightfully belongs to us.
God wants us to train our minds like athletes in training to be champions. Champions are not born; they are developed. It is hard work & it is not easy.
Renewing the mind involves disciplining both what we choose to say & what we choose to think. We discipline our mouths by refusing to speak negatively & instead speak the Word of God & things that line up with His Word. We discipline our minds by refusing to follow unhealthy thoughts patterns & focusing on the good things of God.
Like an athlete who trains consistently, our strength, skill & effectiveness increases as we go on. On the other hand, like an athlete who slackens off training & goes on a junk food binge, if we slacken off compromise this discipline, we will go backwards.
Our faith muscles need to be strong~we need to be fit in the spirit. It is no different to someone going to the gym to lift weights; they start out with small weights then add more & more. Each time they lift the weights there is repetition after repetition that is going over the same thing. Over time muscle develops.
It is just the same with speaking & thinking on the Word of God. You practise it, you train with it, you repeat it again & again, & over time the muscles of your mind & spirit become strong.
Dr Margaret Court gives an example from her own life: In the late 1970s she went through a serious depression. She had a torn heart valve & was wrecked with an inferiority & guilt; she was obsessed with examining her past for sins to confess. She had a busy life as a mum with four children under eight, & in addition they had significant financial problems.
The fear she felt was horrific. Morning would come & she wished it was night & visa Aversa She felt in her spirit she could see roaring lions & other vicious animals about to eat her.
As a result of this she suffered terrible insomnia. Every night she would climb into bed only to get up again to get a glass of wine & take a sleeping tablet. She was convinced she would never sleep without them. But there is a history of alcoholism in her family, & she was in serious danger. This war went on inside her night after night.
In 1982 she started attending Bible College & encountered teaching about the power of God’s Word & started to say scriptures like 2 Tim 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. & Rom 5:17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.
We learn in 2 Tim 1:7 that timidity is the same as fear, which is not from God & that God gives us power, love & self discipline, a calm & well balanced mind.
I am going to tell you a little secret fear will never stop coming against us. We must learn to do what God tells us to do whether we feel fear or not. We must do it afraid if necessary, but that is what courage does; it feels the fear & does it any way!
I always used to think if I felt fear I was a coward, but I have learnt when God told Joshua repeatedly to fear not (Jos 1:9; 10:8), He let him know that fear was going to attack him, but that he must walk in obedience to what God spoke.
We are not cowards if we feel fear. We are cowards only if we let fear rule our decisions.
Fear is a spirit that produces physical & emotional systems. When fear attacks us, we may feel shaky & weak or find ourselves sweating. It may take everything we can muster just to speak or move. None of that means we are cowards. The Word of God does not say “sweat not, shake not or tremble not: The Word says many times “fear not.”The way to conquer fear is to press on through it & get to
the other side of it~the side of freedom, which is the side of power.
What do you believe about yourself? Do you believe you must have approval from others in order to be happy? If so you will never be happy when anyone disapproves of you. Do you believe you are always wrong? If you do you will continue to produce wrong behaviour. Your life will bear fruit on the outside of what you believe about yourself on the inside.
God wants us to behave correctly, so He gives us what we need in order to that. God never requires us to do something without giving us what we need to do it. God gives us the gift of righteousness so we can become righteous in what we think, say & do! Although we sin, God’s free gift of righteousness cannot even be compared to our sin. Our sin is great but His free gift of righteousness is greater. Our sin is swallowed up in His righteousness. Our righteousness is not found in what people think of us, it is found in Christ.
Let that truth sink into your heart & mind. Jesus Christ is your righteousness. You are righteous in Him, & because of that God is pleased with you.
Make declarations based on Scripture, such as I am delivered from all evils & lust of the world; they have no hold over me. Alcohol, you have no hold over my life. Margaret (Court) said the temptation to drink to help her to sleep continued for about two months. Then it was like a light bulb went off inside of her. The Word became revelation, & one day she went to get a drink & it tasted dreadful. It had no hold anymore. & she hasn’t had a drink since that day.
2 Cor 4:18 so we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
When you face difficult times, tell yourself that it cannot last forever, this too shall pass.
You can probably look back at your life & see many difficult times you endured even though you thought at the time I can’t stand this for another day. The devil probably tempted you every five minutes to believe the trial was going to last forever.
As you consider how many times you have already made it to the other side of pain, you can be
confident you will make it again through Christ who strengthens you (Phil 4:13). & on the other side of trials, you will see how God turned those experiences into good for your life (Rom 8:28).
If you have had a problem for more than six months, you probably feel as though your problem has lasted for an eternity. But our years on earth are only a little drop of nothing compared to forever. Paul said in 2 Cor 4:17-18 that the season of trials pass, but Paul learnt to keep his eyes on the prize of heaven & trusted God to prepare him so that God’s glory was revealed through his life.
When you are tempted to become discontented, remember: “This too shall pass” Your afflictions are light & momentary from the perspective of eternity. No matter how bad your current situation may look. God loves you. Never let go of the truth that God loves you, no matter what happens in your life. You can trust that everything will work out because of His great love for you.
You may be wondering why does the Word of God have this kind of power, it is because the Word applied by the Holy Spirit to your life, brings your natural life into line with the spiritual realm. By speaking it & attending to it you are connecting with the spiritual realm & calling things from that
realm into your natural life. In other words you bring the seen into the unseen.
The spiritual is more real than the natural. In the spiritual side of us that is connected with God. The flesh dominates most people, but not the child of God who is walking by the Spirit. God wants our soul to line up with our new spirit, & when soul & spirit line up, it keeps the flesh in line.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam & Eve rebelled against God. At that point the human spirit died & the mind took charge. But your spirit was always ordained to rule over your mind & body. When you gave your heart to Jesus, He brought life back to your spirit man. Now, as coheirs with Christ, seated with Him in heavenly places (Eph 2:6), we are able to realign our life with the spiritual realm.
The supernatural flows through us when we take time to meditate on the Word of God & build ourselves up in the Holy Spirit by prayer. We are supernatural people. We are just passing through this earth. Through the Word of God we bring our Words & thoughts into alignment with our identity as God’s children. As our words frame this new reality, they ignite within us & drive out the things that have hold on us.
In other words we bring the unseen into the seen. According to 2 Corinthians 4:18, the realities of the world that we can see are temporal that is they are temporary & subject to change. The things we can’t see, the realities of God & the spiritual realm, are eternal & unchanging. When you renew your mind to the Word of God, you can start to draw those unseen eternal realities into the seen.
Our faith doesn’t move God. It realigns us with the Word of God & the Spirit of God to receive from the things of the Spirit.
Imagine a catamaran sailing on the water, which is an extremely stable kind of boat because of its two hulls. It does not heel over in the wind, & even if it lifts up on one side, the captain has control of the rudder, pushing the boat through the winds & the water.
The words of our mouth & the thoughts of our minds are like the two hulls of the catamaran. As we bring them both into line with the Word of God they stabilise our life.
You are the captain of your boat: the master of your mouth, your thoughts & your heart. As long as you control what you allow onto your vessel & as long as you keep control of the rudder~what you
say & what you think~ Philippians 4:7 says Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus
Prayer & peace are closely connected. One who entrusts cares to Christ instead of fretting over them will experience the peace of God to guard him from nagging anxiety.
In difficulties & problems, whether it is in relationships, health, character, attitude or anything else, many people will turn to drugs alcohol, cigarettes & all sorts of other things because they think it will bring stability or soundness to their life. They look for peace in all the wrong places~New Age practices, Eastern meditation, fortune telling & palm reading. They listen to all kinds of false prophets’ hoping they will pick up clues about the meaning of their lives & the shape of their future.
We have the greatest prophet living inside of us that is the Spirit of Jesus. It is knowledge of Him that we experience peace.
2 Peter 1:2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
The opening phrase matches the greeting in 1 Peter 1:2. Knowledge is an important term in this letter (See 1:3,8; 2:20) The strengthened form of the Greek word epignosis indicates religious or moral insight, as used in the New Testament for other uses of knowledge gnosis (See 1:5,6; 3:18). The frequent references maybe an effort to combat a form of Gnosticism, an esoteric religious philosophy, which stressed knowledge as the way to God. Peter’s message is that true knowledge is found in God of Christ & the scriptures.
Allow the Word of God to be the stabiliser in your life. It will take you through whatever you are going through by the power of the Holy Spirit
Acknowledgments: Dr Margaret Court
Jesus said His words would never disappear they are eternal. If Jesus was standing in front of you speaking, you would not get anything except the Word of God. Jesus & His Word are the same yesterday, today & forever.
We need to renew our minds to the Word of God. We do this by absorbing the Scriptures, so we get into us what God thinks about situations. What does He say about fear? About sickness? About lack? About the abundant life He wants us to live? When we hear what God says, we can start to say the same, & that brings our thoughts in line with His.
The Bible is the greatest faith book, the greatest health book, the greatest prosperity book, the greatest miracle book, ever written. Whatever we need it is there. It contains God’s answers for any problem we face~answers to fear, discouragement, depression, failure, inferiority & much, much more.
The apostle Paul says in Colossians 3:16 NKJ) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly If you let the Word have its home in your heart & mind, it will give you insight & intelligence & wisdom. Let God’s Word dwell in you richly, then you will see the difference in your life!
We must give the Word first place in our lives, whether it is in our homes, our marriage or at work. Let God & His Word be our soul’s vital necessity.
When we get the Word of God into our mind, it starts to play on the T.V screen of our heart. It becomes real to us that the picture rises up on the inside to dominate the flesh & overtake our life. The Bible is the T.V guide we use to tune in to the channels where God’s answers for our needs are~our T.V guide for relationships, for healing, for finances, for marriage & family, for every area of
life. It is through the Word of God that we seek God’s face & know His ways.
God’s Words are living & powerful, but they don’t get into us automatically. We have to do something to take hold of them in Proverbs 4:20, a father gives his child some important advice: My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words.
This Father is passing on wisdom to his child, but the child has to do something to receive it. He has to listen & to pay attention to it.
God our heavenly Father says the same thing to us. He says listen to My words~don’t ignore them. Listen to them, take them in, agree with them, do them for verse 22 says for they bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body.
The best way to listen to the Word of God is to hear yourself say it that is to speak it out aloud. This is a fundamental principal of faith
Rom 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. When we hear the word of life coming from our own mouths, the Holy Spirit will use them to reprogram our minds & reshape our heart.
Faith grows by hearing the Word of God constantly. The quickest way to grow in faith is to hear yourself saying the Word, meditating on it, muttering it & affirming it. Scriptural meditation is simply saying & thinking what God says. A bit like a cow chewing its cud, you go over it, ponder it, think about, it speak it, again & again...until it gets down into your spirit & The Holy Spirit gives you personal revelation of its truth.
James talks about the power of words, he says our tongue is like the rudder of a ship. And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. 5 In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.
These verses teach us about the power of the tongue. There is power in the tongue indeed, for good or evil. We can bless ourselves or curse ourselves by the way we speak. When we bless, we speak well of; When we curse we speak evil of. By the words we are the pilots of our lives, & we have the power to direct our course by the things we say. We need to set our mouth in the right direction. What we say is the key that opens the door to our lives.
Our faith will be no higher than our words, what we speak is what we become. What we saturate ourselves with, whether words of life or words of death will shape what we become.
So say what God says about you. Not what the world is saying. Not what the television or the newspapers are saying. Not what your spouse or your bosses are saying. & not what your own subconscious habits are saying. Listen to God’s words, & give attention to your own words by speaking God’s words. Renewing your mind is not just about what you say, of course. It’s also about what you believe in your heart.
1 Cor 9:25 AMP)Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things. They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither.
Those of us who intend to run the race to win must conduct ourselves temperately & restrict ourselves in all things. We cannot expect someone else to make us do what is right. We must listen to the Holy Spirit & take action ourselves.
Paul said in verse 27 he buffeted his body. He means that he disciplined it because he did not want to preach to others, tell them what they should do & fail to do it himself. Paul was running the race to win! He knew he could not develop his potential without bringing his body, mind & emotions under control.
Self discipline is essential to the Christian life. Unless we discipline our minds, mouths & our emotions, we will live in ruin. Unless we learn to rule our tempers, we can never achieve the success that rightfully belongs to us.
God wants us to train our minds like athletes in training to be champions. Champions are not born; they are developed. It is hard work & it is not easy.
Renewing the mind involves disciplining both what we choose to say & what we choose to think. We discipline our mouths by refusing to speak negatively & instead speak the Word of God & things that line up with His Word. We discipline our minds by refusing to follow unhealthy thoughts patterns & focusing on the good things of God.
Like an athlete who trains consistently, our strength, skill & effectiveness increases as we go on. On the other hand, like an athlete who slackens off training & goes on a junk food binge, if we slacken off compromise this discipline, we will go backwards.
Our faith muscles need to be strong~we need to be fit in the spirit. It is no different to someone going to the gym to lift weights; they start out with small weights then add more & more. Each time they lift the weights there is repetition after repetition that is going over the same thing. Over time muscle develops.
It is just the same with speaking & thinking on the Word of God. You practise it, you train with it, you repeat it again & again, & over time the muscles of your mind & spirit become strong.
Dr Margaret Court gives an example from her own life: In the late 1970s she went through a serious depression. She had a torn heart valve & was wrecked with an inferiority & guilt; she was obsessed with examining her past for sins to confess. She had a busy life as a mum with four children under eight, & in addition they had significant financial problems.
The fear she felt was horrific. Morning would come & she wished it was night & visa Aversa She felt in her spirit she could see roaring lions & other vicious animals about to eat her.
As a result of this she suffered terrible insomnia. Every night she would climb into bed only to get up again to get a glass of wine & take a sleeping tablet. She was convinced she would never sleep without them. But there is a history of alcoholism in her family, & she was in serious danger. This war went on inside her night after night.
In 1982 she started attending Bible College & encountered teaching about the power of God’s Word & started to say scriptures like 2 Tim 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. & Rom 5:17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.
We learn in 2 Tim 1:7 that timidity is the same as fear, which is not from God & that God gives us power, love & self discipline, a calm & well balanced mind.
I am going to tell you a little secret fear will never stop coming against us. We must learn to do what God tells us to do whether we feel fear or not. We must do it afraid if necessary, but that is what courage does; it feels the fear & does it any way!
I always used to think if I felt fear I was a coward, but I have learnt when God told Joshua repeatedly to fear not (Jos 1:9; 10:8), He let him know that fear was going to attack him, but that he must walk in obedience to what God spoke.
We are not cowards if we feel fear. We are cowards only if we let fear rule our decisions.
Fear is a spirit that produces physical & emotional systems. When fear attacks us, we may feel shaky & weak or find ourselves sweating. It may take everything we can muster just to speak or move. None of that means we are cowards. The Word of God does not say “sweat not, shake not or tremble not: The Word says many times “fear not.”The way to conquer fear is to press on through it & get to
the other side of it~the side of freedom, which is the side of power.
What do you believe about yourself? Do you believe you must have approval from others in order to be happy? If so you will never be happy when anyone disapproves of you. Do you believe you are always wrong? If you do you will continue to produce wrong behaviour. Your life will bear fruit on the outside of what you believe about yourself on the inside.
God wants us to behave correctly, so He gives us what we need in order to that. God never requires us to do something without giving us what we need to do it. God gives us the gift of righteousness so we can become righteous in what we think, say & do! Although we sin, God’s free gift of righteousness cannot even be compared to our sin. Our sin is great but His free gift of righteousness is greater. Our sin is swallowed up in His righteousness. Our righteousness is not found in what people think of us, it is found in Christ.
Let that truth sink into your heart & mind. Jesus Christ is your righteousness. You are righteous in Him, & because of that God is pleased with you.
Make declarations based on Scripture, such as I am delivered from all evils & lust of the world; they have no hold over me. Alcohol, you have no hold over my life. Margaret (Court) said the temptation to drink to help her to sleep continued for about two months. Then it was like a light bulb went off inside of her. The Word became revelation, & one day she went to get a drink & it tasted dreadful. It had no hold anymore. & she hasn’t had a drink since that day.
2 Cor 4:18 so we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
When you face difficult times, tell yourself that it cannot last forever, this too shall pass.
You can probably look back at your life & see many difficult times you endured even though you thought at the time I can’t stand this for another day. The devil probably tempted you every five minutes to believe the trial was going to last forever.
As you consider how many times you have already made it to the other side of pain, you can be
confident you will make it again through Christ who strengthens you (Phil 4:13). & on the other side of trials, you will see how God turned those experiences into good for your life (Rom 8:28).
If you have had a problem for more than six months, you probably feel as though your problem has lasted for an eternity. But our years on earth are only a little drop of nothing compared to forever. Paul said in 2 Cor 4:17-18 that the season of trials pass, but Paul learnt to keep his eyes on the prize of heaven & trusted God to prepare him so that God’s glory was revealed through his life.
When you are tempted to become discontented, remember: “This too shall pass” Your afflictions are light & momentary from the perspective of eternity. No matter how bad your current situation may look. God loves you. Never let go of the truth that God loves you, no matter what happens in your life. You can trust that everything will work out because of His great love for you.
You may be wondering why does the Word of God have this kind of power, it is because the Word applied by the Holy Spirit to your life, brings your natural life into line with the spiritual realm. By speaking it & attending to it you are connecting with the spiritual realm & calling things from that
realm into your natural life. In other words you bring the seen into the unseen.
The spiritual is more real than the natural. In the spiritual side of us that is connected with God. The flesh dominates most people, but not the child of God who is walking by the Spirit. God wants our soul to line up with our new spirit, & when soul & spirit line up, it keeps the flesh in line.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam & Eve rebelled against God. At that point the human spirit died & the mind took charge. But your spirit was always ordained to rule over your mind & body. When you gave your heart to Jesus, He brought life back to your spirit man. Now, as coheirs with Christ, seated with Him in heavenly places (Eph 2:6), we are able to realign our life with the spiritual realm.
The supernatural flows through us when we take time to meditate on the Word of God & build ourselves up in the Holy Spirit by prayer. We are supernatural people. We are just passing through this earth. Through the Word of God we bring our Words & thoughts into alignment with our identity as God’s children. As our words frame this new reality, they ignite within us & drive out the things that have hold on us.
In other words we bring the unseen into the seen. According to 2 Corinthians 4:18, the realities of the world that we can see are temporal that is they are temporary & subject to change. The things we can’t see, the realities of God & the spiritual realm, are eternal & unchanging. When you renew your mind to the Word of God, you can start to draw those unseen eternal realities into the seen.
Our faith doesn’t move God. It realigns us with the Word of God & the Spirit of God to receive from the things of the Spirit.
Imagine a catamaran sailing on the water, which is an extremely stable kind of boat because of its two hulls. It does not heel over in the wind, & even if it lifts up on one side, the captain has control of the rudder, pushing the boat through the winds & the water.
The words of our mouth & the thoughts of our minds are like the two hulls of the catamaran. As we bring them both into line with the Word of God they stabilise our life.
You are the captain of your boat: the master of your mouth, your thoughts & your heart. As long as you control what you allow onto your vessel & as long as you keep control of the rudder~what you
say & what you think~ Philippians 4:7 says Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus
Prayer & peace are closely connected. One who entrusts cares to Christ instead of fretting over them will experience the peace of God to guard him from nagging anxiety.
In difficulties & problems, whether it is in relationships, health, character, attitude or anything else, many people will turn to drugs alcohol, cigarettes & all sorts of other things because they think it will bring stability or soundness to their life. They look for peace in all the wrong places~New Age practices, Eastern meditation, fortune telling & palm reading. They listen to all kinds of false prophets’ hoping they will pick up clues about the meaning of their lives & the shape of their future.
We have the greatest prophet living inside of us that is the Spirit of Jesus. It is knowledge of Him that we experience peace.
2 Peter 1:2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
The opening phrase matches the greeting in 1 Peter 1:2. Knowledge is an important term in this letter (See 1:3,8; 2:20) The strengthened form of the Greek word epignosis indicates religious or moral insight, as used in the New Testament for other uses of knowledge gnosis (See 1:5,6; 3:18). The frequent references maybe an effort to combat a form of Gnosticism, an esoteric religious philosophy, which stressed knowledge as the way to God. Peter’s message is that true knowledge is found in God of Christ & the scriptures.
Allow the Word of God to be the stabiliser in your life. It will take you through whatever you are going through by the power of the Holy Spirit
Acknowledgments: Dr Margaret Court
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