So blessed tonight.

"Peace is a Person, not a thing."

1 Tim 1:15-16 "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life."

He came for SINNERS. And not that I might forget where I've been, but that His story of redeeming my life from the pit might be a display of His PERFECT patience.

Deut. 4:9 “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children—"

He doesn't want us to forget!! He wants us to remember where we've been so that His glory can be DISPLAYED! But He wants us to know that our identity is in Christ, and we are HIDDEN in Him! That's why we're FREE to remember and share where we've been, and why we're called to remember how the Lord redeemed us from the pit. He has scars, too.

Psalm 103:4 "who redeems your life from the pit, (AND)
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy"

He doesn't only redeem us from the pit, but CROWNS us with LOVE and MERCY. It doesn't stop with us getting welcomed out of the pit; we are invited to sit at His table, and all of our dirt is turned into overflowing love and mercy.

Eph. 2:1-5 "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—"

"But God"= The sweetest words in scripture. We were dead. But God.

Rom 7:21-8:4 "So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ...

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

You have to get to the end of yourself to get to the beginning of God.
He is not surprised by my sin, but has ordained for me to see my sin, that I might come to the end of myself and CRY out for Him!!

Psalm 103:14 "FOR HE KNOWS OUR FRAME." God. Not surprised.

Jer 31:2-4 'Thus says the Lord:
“The people who survived the sword
found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest,
the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Again I will build you, and you shall be built,
O virgin Israel!
Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines
and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.'

This passage has to do with Israel, but still I know these words are to speak to all of us. He isn't faithful to us because we are good enough or try hard enough or don't sin. He is faithful to us because He has LOVED us with an EVERLASTING LOVE!! He is not after our perfection, but our love and affections. He will again build us. Israel is anything but a virgin, but He calls her pure. He makes us to dance again.

John 11

'Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. '

When the Lord hears that we are sick and needy, He does not always come right away to bring total healing. Because He LOVES us, He is patient with us, knowing what is best, desiring for us to be emptied of our pride, to come to the end of ourselves. He WILL come to restore, but what He desires most of all is that we come to Him crying out, "Lord, save me!"


I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by FAITH in the Son of God, who LOVED me and gave Himself for me.