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Forgiving Others When It’s Hard

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Why should I forgive someone who hurt me badly?

Written by Ruth on 04/06/2019
Series: Weekly Devotional
Tags: Forgiveness, Freedom, Reconciliation
When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Genesis 37:4
Joseph is badly treated
Joseph’s brothers hated him because their father loved him best. “Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons…and he made him a robe of many colors.” (Genesis 37:3) Such a coat would have shouted this favoritism to everyone who saw Joseph wearing it. As a result, his brothers took an opportunity one day, when Joseph came to visit them in the fields where they were working, to get rid of him. They intended to kill him, but the oldest brother talked them out of that – so they sold Joseph to some passing traders as a slave.

Forgiving does not always mean forgetting
Often we think we must “forgive and forget.” While that is what God does (Isaiah 43:25 and Psalm 103:12) nowhere in the Bible God tells us we must forget the sin we have forgiven. Joseph’s situation is a great example of why forgetting is sometimes impossible. He was far from his home, a slave who could not leave his master, living in a situation that eventually made him a prisoner instead of just a slave (Genesis 39). Forgiving means letting go of what happened, giving what was done to you to Jesus.

We can know Joseph forgave his brothers, even though he could not tell them so, soon after he was sold. How? We see it in the way he acted toward his master in Egypt. He served Potiphar well, so well, in fact, that Potiphar made Joseph the overseer of everything he owned. It is impossible for us to live peacefully in the unwanted consequences of someone else’s action against us without having forgiven those who caused our pain or injury.

Another proof we see that Joseph forgave his brothers was that he treated Potiphar’s wife righteously when she tempted him. Had Joseph still been angry at his brothers, his anger would have transferred to this situation where he would have wronged Potiphar without anyone probably discovering his sin –he would have felt it was his right to get something for himself out of this bad situation. He did not do so.

Again, when Joseph was sent to prison because of the wife’s false accusation, Joseph would not have willingly helped other prisoners with their problems (Genesis 40) if he had not forgiven his accusers. Joseph continued to trust God even when another betrayal appeared to sentence him to a life in prison.

What helped Joseph when he could not forget? He gave the whole problem to God! He had learned from his father’s stories, how Laban and Esau had harmed him. He remembered God’s promises to Jacob, and how those promises had been kept (Genesis 35).

Forgiving means reconciling
Then came the impossible – he met his brothers again! (Genesis 42-44). Joseph, now a man of great power, second only to the king of Egypt, could easily have sought and been granted justice by the king. But rather than seeking vengeance on his brothers, he did the hard work of finding reconciliation with them. He looked for assurance that they had changed from what he had experienced in them nearly 20 years ago. He tested to see if they still harbored jealousy in their hearts. He even set up a situation to see how they would treat his own younger brother, Benjamin, differently – would they sacrifice him for their own gain? He worked toward and won, reconciliation even though his brothers were afraid of him.

Pray this week:
Lord Jesus, help me to forgive ___ so that my relationship with You can remain clean.

Whom do you need to forgive? With whom do you need to seek reconciliation? Please write if you need someone to pray with you about your situation.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Bitcoin Price Storms 151 YTD as Facebook’s Libra Boosts 2019 Rally

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Bitcoin Price Storms 151% YTD as Facebook's Libra Boosts 2019 Rally

Bitcoin Price Storms 151% YTD as Facebook’s Libra Boosts 2019 Rally

 

By CCN Markets: Bitcoin is up more than 151 percent against the U.S. dollar year-to-date at $9,300, surpassing most assets and stock indices in the likes of Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 with ease in six-month performance.

The bitcoin price is up nearly $1,200 in the past week (source: coinmarketcap.com)

With the block reward halving of bitcoin on the horizon and the inflow of institutional capital consistently on the rise, the sentiment around the crypto market remains positive.

Why this trader says Libra will not negatively affect bitcoin

Libra, a crypto asset developed by the Libra Association, a consortium based in Switzerland founded by major conglomerates including Facebook, Visa, Mastercard, Lyft, Uber, Booking Holdings, and more, dominated the headlines in the financial sector in the past two days.

Some analysts have suggested that the release of Libra, planned for 2020, may lead to the decline in demand for existing crypto assets such as bitcoin and ether, the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum.

However, industry executives and traders within the crypto sector believe Libra would only act as a catalyst for existing crypto assets and boost mainstream interest towards the asset class.

DCG CEO Barry Silbert said:

“The launch of Facebook’s cryptocurrency will go down in history as the catalyst that propelled digital assets (including bitcoin) to mass global consumer adoption. Will be remembered as just as important — and transformative — as the launch of the Netscape browser. Buckle up.”

A crypto trader and real estate developer known as Satoshi Flipper noted that Libra, which will operate as a stablecoin backed by the Libra Reserve according to its whitepaper, will not replace bitcoin nor compete against it in the same market.

Rather, it would operate in a centralized ecosystem with regulations and oversight, bringing more awareness to bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market.

He said:

Once Libra goes live, nobody outside of the Facebook platform will care much for it. It’s another stable coin and it’s not replacing BTC. It will work in a centralized ecosystem. But it will bring awareness to BTC and altcoins. And I’m excited about the network effect it will have.

The Winklevoss twins, billionaire bitcoin investors and the founders of the Gemini exchange, also expressed their optimistic stance on the near to medium term performance of bitcoin.

Tyler Winklevoss said that if the bitcoin price breaks above $10,000, it is highly likely to surge above $15,000 based on the historical performance of the asset.

Similarly, Fundstrat co-founder Thomas Lee stated that if the bitcoin price surpasses the $10,000 mark, a 200 to 400 percent increase in value is expected based on the performance of bitcoin throughout the past several years.

Lee said:

“Well, you know I think bitcoin ultimately becomes a reserve currency in crypto, bitcoin at $9,000 has only been at this level in four percent of its history. We’re deep into a bull market and people are pretty silent about it. I think bitcoin is easily going to take out its all-time high.”

Will alternative crypto assets see light?

From record highs, alternative crypto assets remain down by more than 80 percent against the U.S. dollar on average.

Ether and XRP, for instance, are down 81 percent and 87 percent respectively from their all-time highs while bitcoin is down about 52 percent from its record high at above $20,000.

Based on the strong performance of bitcoin since January and the struggle of alternative crypto assets to match the performance of bitcoin in the last six months, traders see potential in major assets to rebound strongly shall bitcoin maintain its momentum throughout 2019.

 

 

Published: 20/06/2019 04:47 ET. Journalist:

Joseph Young @iamjosephyoung

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Overcoming Fear Is Possible

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Doing the very thing that makes you afraid can be God’s way of helping you overcome that fear.

Written by Gary Fleetwood on 16/07/2018

Series: Weekly Devotional

Tags: Anxiety, Fear, Trust

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

I remember the first time that I went to Zimbabwe to evangelize out in the rural areas of the country. That first day was a little scary (to say the least). The person driving me around dropped me off in the middle of nowhere! I was with a young teenage boy who had been in the area before, but there was nothing familiar in sight. We could not see any villages, there were no roads except the one we were on, and we were very near the Zambezi River where all the wild animals go for water during the day.

I would be lying if I said that I was not a little bit anxious and fearful. I didn't even know where I would be at the end of the day or who was coming to pick us up. As the day got later and began to cool off, the wild animals started to move around more and my anxiety increased all the more.

You can probably imagine why I was not optimistic about my evangelism trip at this point. I did not even speak the language of the people that I was there to evangelize. However, after a week of walking in 100-degree heat every day, nearly 200 people had come to Christ. The next week I stayed with them and discipled them every day for about eight hours and a church was started.

So, what did I learn through that experience?

This trip was one of the greatest lessons of my life. I learned that I could trust God completely to help me reach people that needed Christ and that He was my protection at all times – even in a very dangerous setting. It strengthened me that I could trust God – especially when I was afraid. By the end of the first couple of days in the country I found that I no longer felt afraid, and eagerly wanted to return to the rural areas and start evangelizing the next day. It was great. No wonder David could say in Psalm 27:1 “Whom (or what) shall I fear?”

Learning how to overcome fear is one of God’s spiritual tools.

Everyone has certain things in their life that make them afraid. However, doing the very thing that makes you afraid can be God’s way of helping you overcome that fear.

I remember the first time that I ever flew. I was very nervous, and every time the plane encountered turbulence, I would become anxious. I would immediately think “Are we going to crash?” However, I have been flying for many years now, and I rarely even notice the turbulence, and I certainly am not afraid or anxious about flying. 

Many people seem so fearful to share their faith that they never talk to anyone about Christ. They wonder what someone will think of them, or they think that they cannot answer all of their questions. The best way, though, to overcome that fear is to talk to someone about Christ. Your faith in God’s power and presence in your life will give you the help to overcome your fears of witnessing to someone. Listen to what God told Joshua in Joshua 1:9: 

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

What a great promise! In difficult times that make us afraid, God’s truth becomes our comfort and our strength. His truth gives us all of the reasons to have hope because our God is a great God, an all-powerful God.

Is there anything else that can help me trust God through my fears?

Any time that we are facing fears that seem to cripple us and paralyze our life, they are always harder to face when we face them alone. Sometimes we have to face them alone, but other times we need someone else in our life to encourage us and give us hope as we face our fears. Recently I had to speak to a group of people who were going on their first ever mission trip to Madagascar. It was a very long trip, and most of them had never been on a mission trip.

They knew nothing, and it frightened some of them. However, simply listening to me sharing with them about the many times I have gone to new places to minister Christ to people became a great encouragement to them. The encouragement that we can find from sharing our fears and anxieties with other believers can be a great source of strength in our life.

Pray this week:

Father, in those areas of my life that make me afraid, will you please bring someone into my life that can help me face those fears? I know that I need a spiritual helper that can be there to encourage me when I feel those fears coming on me.

Are you willing to open your life up to someone else to let them know about your personal fears that you are trying to hide from everyone else?

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Bitcoin’s Rally Forgets These Asia Crypto Shares

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Bitcoin's Rally Forgets These Asia Crypto Shares

Bitcoin's Rally Forgets These Asia Crypto Shares

(Bloomberg) — This year’s resurgence of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has yet to translate into the same kind of gains for some of Asia’s more prominent crypto-linked stocks.

The largest digital coin is up about 150% in 2019, surging past the $9,000 level earlier this week ahead of Facebook Inc.’s announcement for a cryptocurrency called Libra, that will be governed by a group of almost 30 companies including Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. Facebook shares slipped 0.3% in New York after the announcement Tuesday.

The prospect of Facebook and other mainstream institutions such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. entering the space has been one of the main drivers of the so-called thaw in the “crypto winter” since April. U.S. bitcoin-exposed assets have rallied: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust soared 189% this year, Riot Blockchain Inc. rose 78%, Marathon Patent Group Inc. climbed 50% and Parateum Inc. surged 67%.

But there has been little follow through in Asia.

Monex Group Inc., which owns the Japanese exchange and former hacking victim Coincheck Inc., is down more than 2% this year in Tokyo. The brokerage is counting on its investment in Coincheck to help its securities arm make up lost territory against its competitors.

Others include Remixpoint Inc., operator of crypto exchange BITPoint, which has lost 10% so far in 2019. Vidente Co., a shareholder of South Korean exchange Bithumb, is down 14% this year, while BC Technology Group Ltd., which launched new crypto exchange ANXONE earlier this year is also down 35% amid a wider selloff among Hong Kong-listed stocks.

“Companies that have invested in exchanges, I do think they will lag price appreciation in terms of the stock,” said Vijay Ayyar, Singapore-based head of business development at Luno, a crypto exchange. Companies need to “report at some point and actually show some guidance in terms of how they are able to convert their crypto revenue into fiat dollars.”

While it can be difficult to determine a company’s exposure to crypto relative to its other operations, Ayyar sees three levels by which investors can roughly gauge how closely a stock may move in line with the price of Bitcoin, with the first the most strongly correlated:

Outright ownership of digital assets;Investment in a crypto exchange;Investment in a blockchain project.

“I do think that in crypto, the general consensus seems to be that you are basically better off owning crypto rather than trying to invest in the peripheral stocks,” Ayyar added. “Owning crypto-linked stocks is lesser risk and potentially lesser reward because it’s not going to directly be as lucrative.”

Stock-Market Summary

MSCI Asia Pacific Index ex-Japan up 1.5%MSCI Asia Pacific Index up 1.5%Japan’s Topix index up 1.5%; Nikkei 225 up 1.6%Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index up 2.2%; Hang Seng China Enterprises up 2.2%; Shanghai Composite up 1.4%; CSI 300 up 1.9%Taiwan’s Taiex index up 1.3%South Korea’s Kospi index up 1%; Kospi 200 up 1.1%Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 up 1%; New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 up 1.1%Singapore’s Straits Times Index up 1.3%; Malaysia’s KLCI up 0.3%; Philippine Stock Exchange Index up 0.3%; Jakarta Composite up 0.8%; Vietnam’s VN Index down 0.3%S&P 500 e-mini futures little changed after index closed up 1% in last session

 

Bloomberg Eric Lam

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Bitcoin Climbs Above 92316 Level Up 086

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Bitcoin Climbs Above 9,231.6 Level, Up 0.86%

Bitcoin Climbs Above 9,231.6 Level, Up 0.86%

Investing.com – Bitcoin rose above the $9,231.6 threshold on Tuesday. Bitcoin was trading at 9,231.6 by 00:54 (04:54 GMT) on the Investing.com Index, up 0.86% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage gain since June 17.

The move upwards pushed Bitcoin's market cap up to $164.6B, or 57.12% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, Bitcoin's market cap was $241.2B.

Bitcoin had traded in a range of $9,199.2 to $9,336.1 in the previous twenty-four hours.

Over the past seven days, Bitcoin has seen a rise in value, as it gained 16.39%. The volume of Bitcoin traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $15.3B or 29.04% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $7,805.7661 to $9,438.1270 in the past 7 days.

At its current price, Bitcoin is still down 53.54% from its all-time high of $19,870.62 set on December 17, 2017.

Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading

Ethereum was last at $270.01 on the Investing.com Index, up 0.81% on the day.

XRP was trading at $0.44702 on the Investing.com Index, a gain of 3.81%.

Ethereum's market cap was last at $28.9B or 10.04% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while XRP's market cap totaled $19.2B or 6.65% of the total cryptocurrency market value.

Prices of the major cryptocurrency were mostly higher on Tuesday in Asia, with Bitcoin hovered above the key $9,000 level on Facebook’s reported move into cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin rose 2.1% to $9,267.4 by 11:30 PM ET (03:30 GMT). Ethereum gained 0.7% to $270.23. XRP jumped 4.3% to 0.44642, but Litecoin underperformed and lost 1.5% to $133.058.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is reportedly launching a new digital asset to be used as a peer-to-peer payment within messenger apps. Bitcoin surged immediately following the news, as some analysts said the news could be the biggest boost for virtual coins in history.

 

 

Cryptocurrency News10 minutes ago (Jun 18, 2019 12:54AM ET)

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

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How Fear Leads You to God

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I 

learned a long time ago that it was perfectly okay to be afraid of certain things.

Written by Gary Fleetwood on 09/07/2018
Series: Weekly Devotional
Tags: Anxiety, Fear, Peace
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

John 14:27
I learned a long time ago that it was perfectly okay to be afraid of certain things.  In fact, fear can be a great motivator to help someone stay away from things that may be very harmful to their life.  Fear can help a person be much more careful when in a very dangerous situation.  There is a particular beach fairly near where we live that has a very strong undertow.

Unfortunately, each year people become careless when swimming at that beach and they get caught in the undertow and drown.  When we go to that beach with our grandchildren, we stay right there with them and do not leave their side for fear that they could easily drown.  I live out in the country and we have some heavy tractor equipment to help keep up our property.  Most every piece of that heavy equipment is very dangerous when it is running and can kill someone very easily.  So, we have a healthy fear of each one of those pieces of equipment and treat each one with great respect.  

So, how should someone deal with real fear?
When used in the Bible, the word “fear” generally refers to something that causes anxiety and frightens a person.  Fear could almost be considered as an alarm system that something may not be right and that something very dangerous may be happening.  Fear has the ability to terrify us and cause us to panic.  I have often heard people say that they were “scared to death” of something.  My son-in-law, who is a very big and strong young man, is “scared to death” of heights.  He almost refuses to get on a tall ladder to fix something.  So, we know that certain circumstances can make us afraid.  When that happens, notice the simplicity of what Psalm 56:3 says that a person should do.

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” (Psalm 56:3)

Often times God uses frightening circumstances to help teach us that we can always trust Him.  He is right there with us and He wants us to know that truth in a very real way.  When my wife was teaching our young children how to swim, they were very afraid at first.  They were afraid of the water being over their head because they did not know how to swim and were afraid that they might drown.  Yet, I can remember how my wife stayed right there with them, and she would constantly be saying to them “Don’t be afraid.  Mommy is right here with you.”  Well, that is what this verse says to us when we may be afraid.  God is saying to us “Don’t be afraid.  I am right here with you.”  He knows exactly what is happening to us and has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us.

What can God’s peace do for me?
In our verse in John 14:27, Jesus knew that after He was resurrected that His disciples were going to be facing many very difficult moments in their life that could easily cause them to be afraid.  They would be beaten, thrown in jail, and eventually put to death.  However, in the midst of all of those potentially fearful moments, Jesus wanted them to know that He had something that they needed.  He had a supernatural “peace” that He would give to them in the midst of those fearful moments.  When He spoke those words to them, they were afraid then that He was going to leave them and that greatly frightened them.  What Jesus is saying to anyone who becomes afraid of something or someone is that one thing that is desperately needed in those circumstances is His peace.  His supernatural peace is something that creates a calming effect in a person’s life.  His peace helps reassure us that He is really in complete control of our circumstances.  When my children were afraid of drowning, my wife was in complete control of their safety and would never have allowed them to drown.  She wanted them to have great peace in the midst of something that was making them afraid – and the same is true of what God desires for our life as well.  He is always in complete control of everything that is taking place in our life, and He wants us to understand that spiritual reality.

So, what should I do when I become afraid?
Well, more than anything else, we need to always be committing ourselves to our heavenly Father.  By fully committing ourselves to Him, we are learning to trust Him.  The greater our trust in His love and care for us, the less fear we will experience when the very difficult moments come in our life.  Fear has the ability to paralyze a person both emotionally and spiritually.  It has the power to overcome them so that they cannot function in life.  I know a young man who was severely injured in an automobile accident and he was completely paralyzed from his neck down.  He cannot do anything for himself – and that is exactly what fear does to a person.  It prevents them from being able to see God’s hand in their circumstances and it takes their focus off of God and puts it on their circumstances.  However, God desires the opposite – that our difficult moments help us to place our focus on God, and so there will always be times in our life when He allows us to be in circumstances that make us afraid so that we can learn that He can be trusted even in the midst of those trying moments.

Pray this week:
Father, I know that different things often make me afraid, but I truly want You to be the center of my life.  I do not want to be paralyzed by fear.  Would you please help me to face the fears that seem to threaten my life and to genuinely give them to you?

Would you be willing to write down all of the things that make you afraid and give that list to God and ask Him to help you overcome each one of them?

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Bitcoin’s Likely Introduction Of Crypto Pushes Bitcoin Price Above 9000

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Bitcoin's Likely Introduction Of Crypto Pushes Bitcoin Price Above $9000

Even though in the Indian context, trading in cryptos is likely to be restricted due to the recent report which may send individuals engaging in cryptos to jail for a 10-year term, in the global world, cryptos are fast gaining ground. Just a week before there was news that a lesser known crypto litcoin has almost surged 4-folds this year on account of halvening, the process that will push up the price of the digital currency as well as prevent erosion in its value.

And no later, Bitcoin, the largest crypto has known to surge to levels beyond $9000 on Facebook optimism as the social media giants is making news rounds of introducing its cryptocurrency. The recent renaissance in cryptos is primarily on the back of the fact that these are seeing a greater adoption from mainstream companies and institutions as well as gained the attention of Wall Street on a more recent basis. The largest digital currency surged 7.4% from late Friday and traded at US$9,006.55 as of 8.49am Tokyo time. Rival coins also climbed: litecoin was up 5.9 per cent and ethereum rose 4.5 per cent.

 

By Roshni Agarwal| Updated: Monday, June 17,

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

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Piixpay Lets You Pay Bills and Invoices With Cryptocurrency

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Piixpay Lets You Pay Bills and Invoices With Cryptocurrency

Piixpay Lets You Pay Bills and Invoices With Cryptocurrency

If you need to regularly cover fiat payments but prefer to use your digital assets, a platform like Piixpay can be very helpful. The payment provider allows you to use cryptocurrencies to pay invoices, bills and make other recurring payments to recipients that still accept only traditional money.

Spend Bitcoin Cash, Make Fiat Payments

To initiate a new payment with Piixpay you have to provide the beneficiary’s name and Iban number. You are required to enter the exact amount in euros, as the platform processes bank transfers in Europe’s single currency. You also need to add a short description of the transaction and an optional reference number.

Then you have to choose the crypto you are going to spend. Piixpay currently supports four major digital coins – bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoin core (BTC), litecoin (LTC), and dash (DASH) – as well as a stablecoin backed by euros. Est-coins (ESCT) are issued by Piixpay’s operator, Ungaro LLC, and have a redemption value of €1 per coin.

Piixpay has another useful feature called Instafill. It lets you link a crypto wallet address to a bank account. Each time coins are sent to that dedicated address, the payment processor will exchange the cryptocurrency and send the fiat to your bank account. You can also check the status of any payment at all times.

To use the services of the crypto payment platform you have to create an account. You can sign up with a valid email address or use your Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Windows or Yahoo account. Piixpay is registered and licensed in Estonia but it operates in over 100 countries around the world.

There’s a service fee of €1 + 1.75% of the amount for transactions funded with cryptocurrencies. Bank transfers cost €1 for transactions within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and €40 for outside the zone. The smallest amount you can transfer is 1 euro and each transaction is limited to a maximum of €20,000. You can find more information about all applicable fees on Piixpay’s website.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

God’s Words: Peace

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Life-Transforming Words

Written by Gary Fleetwood on 08/08/2017
Series: Weekly Devotional
Tags: God, Jesus, Peace
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23
When someone mentions the word “peace” to you, what comes to your mind? Unfortunately, the absence of peace in our world is what may stand out to you. There is so much hatred, unrest, and so many unbelievable acts of evil against innocent people, that we wonder if it will ever end. It seems that the whole world is always talking about how to achieve peace, but the sad reality is that they never have any real peace no matter how much they talk about it. What the world fails to understand is that true peace can come only from God. So if we leave God out of our “peace equation,” then we can never attain it. Only God has the power to give peace to our lives. In fact, one of the great titles of God is “God of peace.” (Hebrews 13:20)

What do you think the word “peace” actually means?
The word “peace” pictures joining two things together that had become separated from one another. I remember seeing a true story about a family who had become completely separated in a tsunami while on vacation. They were all swept away by the huge waves, and each of them was hurt very badly. They just knew that their other family members had died in the disaster; they each felt helpless and alone. However, God miraculously reunited them as a family, and they were overwhelmed with peace and joy.

So what does God’s peace actually do for me?
The peace that God gives also includes the idea of having a kind of inner restfulness. For the believer, that rest is given to them because they are actually at peace with God. The Bible says that before we came to Christ, we were actually His “enemies” (Ephesians 2:14). However, Romans 5:8 reveals why we no longer have to be enemies with God. It says, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (also see Romans 5:1)

When Jesus Christ died for our sins, His death enabled His enemies to actually become part of His family. That is so amazing! Now, we not only have peace with God, but God actually gives His peace to help when very difficult things happen to us. That is the peace that Paul is talking about in Galatians 5:22 — the actual “peace of God” that is working in our heart and mind — and especially when difficult things happen in our lives, over which we have no control.

Did Jesus ever talk to His disciples about God’s peace?
In John 14:27 Jesus was talking to His disciples because He knew that after He left that they would be facing some very strong trials in their life. He said this to them: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)

So, what happens when I go through something very difficult?
Some people think that they will have peace when they no longer have any problems. However, the peace that Paul talks about is a supernatural calmness that God places in our heart, no matter the difficulty of our circumstances. Jesus says in this verse that when we lose our peace, we often become afraid. We do not know how a difficult trial may actually work out for us, so we are fearful — and in the process we lose our peace. So, when Jesus talks about His peace, He is not saying that we will never have troubles in our life. Rather, He’s saying that when we do suffer difficult things, we can know that He will be right there with us (also see John 16:33).

What should I do when I am afraid?
One of the great passages in the Bible about anxiety is Philippians 4:6-7, which says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

What a great promise for when we become afraid, nervous, or restless about something. As we pray and seek God’s wisdom and will for our life, He gives a supernatural peace that goes beyond our understanding. It is actually powerful enough to guard and protect our mind and our heart from worrying, so that the trials and difficulties no longer disturb us or make us afraid. We know that God is “guarding” us. So, the more we yield our life to Christ, the more His peace will help protect us from fear, from worry, and from thoughts that upset us.

Can I really experience God’s peace?
Paul encouraged the Thessalonian believers in 2 Thessalonians 3:16 with these words: “Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.”

This passage tells us that God really wants to experience his peace! What an amazing prayer for both us and these believers — peace at all times and in every way possible! That is what the God and Lord of peace wants to give to each and every believer.

Pray this week:
Lord Jesus, would you please help me to yield my life to you so that I can enjoy your peace in my heart?

Do I truly believe that I can know the amazing peace of God when very difficult trials come into my life?

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member