April 17, 2020
Referring to Philippians 4:7 “His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
It conjures up a picture. What will happen is that this peace of God will walk round the ramparts and towers of our life. We are inside, and the activities of the heart and mind are producing those stresses and anxieties and strains from the outside. But the peace of God will keep them all out and we ourselves inside will be at perfect peace.
When we live in the love of God, we begin to pay attention to people the way God pays attention to us.
The kind of devotion that God delights in comes about when a person finds security in the pure, unselfish love of God. We don’t find our security or our value from the rules we obey or the way we live. But in the love of God, we know that there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more or less—He just loves us!
As disciples, we find not some, but all of our strength, hope, courage, and confidence in God. Therefore, prayer must be our first concern.
In the secret of God’s tabernacle no enemy can find us, and no troubles can reach us. The pride of man and the strife of tongues find no entrance into the pavilion of God. The secret of his presence is a more secure refuge than a thousand Gibraltars. I do not mean that no trials come. They may come in abundance, but they cannot penetrate into the sanctuary of the soul, and we may dwell in perfect peace even in the midst of life fiercest storms.
That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an inspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, “Thou art my refuge”
Perils as well as privileges attend the higher Christian life. The nearer we come to God, the thicker the hosts of darkness in heavenly places. The safe place lies in obedience to God’s Word, singleness of heart and holy vigilance. When Christians speak of standing in a place where they do not need to watch, they are in great danger. Let us walk in intimate and holy confidence, yet with holy, humble watchfulness.
I believe God, through His Spirit, grants us love, joy, and peace no matter what is happening in our lives. As Christians, we shouldn’t expect our joy to always feel like happiness, but instead recognize joy as inner security — a safeness in our life with Christ.
Safety does not depend on our conception of the absence of danger. Safety is found in God’s presence, in the centre of His perfect will.
His will is our hiding place.