If anyone says he or she has never once doubted anything they’ve read in Scripture, I daresay they haven’t thought that deeply about it.  Only Jesus who has seen the Father could not possibly have doubts.  The rest of us, without firsthand experience, find ourselves like John the Baptist in prison (Luke 7:18-28) with periodic questioning of what we believe.

Doubts happen to anyone who thinks about things.  Doubting itself is not sin.  It depends on what you do with it.

Doubting that drives you to Scripture to dig and to learn and to ask Jesus to show you His truth is not sinful.  It’s humanity striving to understand something far beyond our comprehension.  Like Thomas in John 20:26-31  (comparing with Thomas in John 11:16), our life’s pains and disappointments can cause us to question what we believe.  But those of us who go to God’s Word in search of the Truth of Jesus Christ invariably find Him there and grow stronger in our faith for it.

The River of Peace by Barbara Shafer, preached at Advocate Condell 6.23.2013

When I was a child, one of my favorite summer memories was during the years I lived in North Carolina and developed my thick Southern accent.  Periodically, there are still words that bring it out, but mostly I’ve lost it.  But my favorite summer memory endures and involves my playing outside with friends—which is what kids enjoyed before smart phones, Wii and tablets.

We would hike through the woods to a secret opening along the river bank.

The river—more like a gentle stream…bigger than a brook…in a child’s mind as wide as wide could be so technically a river…but mostly the water was not so deep that it failed to leave exposed some big broad, flat rocks.  Sometimes we’d go fishing, but mostly we’d lay in the sunshine on the rocks or sit atop them, telling stories and laughing while dangling our legs in the stream.  It was peaceful, refreshing; and we could spend hours as summer drifted along without any cares.

Don’t you long for a place like that?  Youth is wasted on the young, I guess, although I think I appreciated it even then because it is such an indelible memory.  And yes, I long for a place like that in the hectic adult life we grow to have.

There is a River of Peace available to you today.  It’s available to me.  It’s found cover to cover in the Bible if we look carefully to see its flowing from page to page.

There is a River of Peace and it

1. Flows, bringing blessing 
2. Flows, supporting life
3. Flows, giving healing
4. Flows, producing fruit

There is a River of Peace that flows from God.

Come to the River and find peace for your souls.

Where is this river?  We see it first in Genesis:

Genesis 2:9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground– trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Before sin ever entered the world, there was a River of Peace flowing from Eden—the place of God’s presence among His creation.  This River nourished the Garden and sustained all of life.  Trees that brought beauty and food.  And the River multiplied into four headwaters.  Although locations of Pishon, Havilah, and Gihon are unknown, the river clearly flows in many directions from the high ground of Eden…paradise…the place of God’s dwelling among Adam and Eve, the pinnacles of His creation.

We see this same River also in Revelation.

Revelation 22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

Again we see this River of Peace flowing, bringing blessing, life, healing, and fruit.  It flows from the place of God’s presence, His rightful place upon His throne.  Don’t you long to come to a River like that?  A place with water of life, clear as crystal?  Refreshing, blessing, flowing, healing…

God desires you to come to such a River and to know the blessings of peace that He alone can give.

Where are you today?

Have you come to this River or are you in a place of unrest, worry, or pain?

The beautiful River of Genesis and of Revelation are one and the same River, but something happened between those chapters: something that causes unrest, worry, and pain.

Sin entered the picture.

* * *

I didn’t tell you the rest of my story regarding the river of my childhood. 

We stopped going to the river one fateful day. 

One day when a few of my friends and I were sitting on the big broad rocks, dangling our legs into the cool refreshing water, we saw a snake.  Whether it was just a water snake or an actual cottonmouth (otherwise known as water moccasin) who knows anymore?  We’d turned it into a cottonmouth by the time we jumped from rock to rock and ran all the way home…not that snakes can run…

To this day, I don’t recall whether our parents told us not to go there anymore on account of the cottonmouth or whether we just avoided the area because we didn’t like snakes, especially aggressive and highly poisonous ones (go figure!), but the result was the same.  We didn’t come to the river anymore.

Have unrest, worry, or pain kept you from coming to the River of Peace? 

Things that bring fear…including sin itself…have the effect of blocking our way to peace.

The peace of the river of my youth was disrupted by the cottonmouth…just like the peace of the river from Eden was disrupted by sin.  It blocked the way, making the river harder to access because we were afraid.  The river was still there.  But fear kept us away.

Even so, my memory is most often of the beauty and the peace, just like the Bible tells us that the peace God gives is still available to us.  It can be our best thought by day or by night:

Isaiah 48: 17 This is what the LORD says– your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. 18 If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

God does not desire our living in tumult and turmoil.  He doesn’t want unrest, worry, or pain to keep us from Him and the peace that flows like a river from His throne.  He desires to give us peace in the here-and-now–until Jesus returns and the new heaven and earth restore everything to the perfect way they once were.  The River of Revelation clear as crystal…

Until then, is that scene from Revelation only the stuff of dreams and visions?  Visions like Ezekiel’s:

Ezekiel 47:1 The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2 He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the south side. 3 As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. 4 He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. 5 He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in– a river that no one could cross. 6 He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?” Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. 8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. 9 Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. 10 Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds– like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

Visions, yes, but this life-giving water is ALSO available to us today. 

How can I find the River of Peace, you ask?

John 7: 37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Isaiah 44: 2 This is what the LORD says– he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you: Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. 3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.

In each of these Scriptures we’ve seen so far, the streams of living water, the quenching of the dry ground, the River of Peace: it all comes from God who gives us life.

We can come to the River of Peace—even today—by God’s own work of giving the Holy Spirit as a seal of redemption upon those who have placed their faith and trust in Jesus.  He dwells in our hearts and His healing waters flow, ministering peace to our hearts even while our worlds outside may be poised to cause us harm.

It’s like God captured and removed the cottonmouth from endangering His children and by faith, you and I free to play on the big broad rocks.  We are free to enjoy the refreshing water, the flowing blessing, the fruit of righteousness, and the peace that surpasses all understanding.

By faith in Christ, we have been set free from the cottonmouth of sin.  We have received God’s forgiveness in place of our sins.  Indeed our sins have been washed away in this River of Peace—our sins are removed from us and are forgotten.  As believers, we have received the Holy Spirit and this is what Isaiah says (after discussing a world in trouble which is our life until…)

Isaiah 32:15 till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest. 16 Justice will dwell in the desert and righteousness live in the fertile field. 17 The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. 18 My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest. 19 Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely, 20 how blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream, and letting your cattle and donkeys range free

This is the River of Peace made up of living water that flows within– Living water that flows from the throne of God into the heart of every believer, sealed by God’s Holy Spirit.  So no matter where today finds you, you can come to the River of Peace where it

1. Flows, bringing blessing
2. Flows, supporting life
3. Flows, giving healing—sometimes now but always eternal healing
4. Flows, producing fruit of righteousness, indeed peace for our souls.

Come to the River of Peace…

Why bother?  I sometimes wonder. The Bible proclaims that the Fruit of Righteousness Will Be Peace, but where is this fruit?  Why keep trying if–to our eyes–it’s a fruitless endeavor? It’s a common complaint in the Bible and in life: Why do bad things happen to good people and people who seem wicked to the core manage to escape problems?  When will the chickens come home to roost?

Of course, the Bible says it differently.  In Ecclesiastes the writer calls it meaningless and simply says he doesn’t understand.  Jeremiah out-and-out complains.  Gotta love those prophets, saying it like it is.

You are always righteous, O LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?  (Jeremiah 12:1)

Life certainly doesn’t seem fair on so many fronts. I have learned this much:  My perspective is out of whack when I ask, “Why I should bother being righteous if it doesn’t look like it’s going to get me anywhere?”

Well, today’s pictured Scripture gives us a clue on the proper perspective.  Righteousness produces fruit called peace.  It comes in two flavors: The peace we have with God and the inner peace that anchors our hearts.  It shows in our lives and reinforces the hope we have in what we do not see.  So at the end of the day, by faith, what do we get from righteous living? Quietness, a ceasing from striving.  But we also get confident assurance that what we don’t see today will someday be rewarded.

It’s the essence of hope in God and faith in Christ.  The Fruit of Righteousness Will Be Peace.  That’s enough to keep me going.  What about you?

Wish I could say that I feel like shouting for joy tonight, after all, God Inspires Shouts of Joy.  (But, it’s been a long day).  Oddly enough, by the time you read this, it will be morning most likely, no matter where in the world you are.  For some of my readers, it’s already morning when this automatically posts.  For others these devotionals show up in your mailbox while you’re sleeping.  Kind of like the elves that make shoes…

“There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest: but still he could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all he had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of shoes.  Then he cut his leather out, all ready to make up the next day, meaning to rise early in the morning to his work. His conscience was clear and his heart light amidst all his troubles; so he went peaceably to bed, left all his cares to Heaven, and soon fell asleep.”  Click here to read the full Grimm Brothers fairy tale.

Having done my work to the best of my ability, I would like to say I leave all my cares to God in heaven at the end of the day, but in truth, I often carry them with me from dawn until morning comes again and it’s the start of another day for me.  Every day, I know is another opportunity to praise God like He deserves.  From the rising of the sun to its setting: shouts of joy that God inspires are supposed to be my song of praise all day long!  What happens between my morning prayers from one day to the next?

I wonder sometimes why I lose my amazement at the God who inspires shouts of joy as my day plods along.  Is it because I can see sin and sorrow more than I can visualize God’s being with me in the midst of it?  Is it that I just don’t have enough faith?  Is it that I don’t trust God and find myself worrying instead?

One thing is for sure: It’s not that God has stopped being amazing.  No matter where you are in the world, no matter what time of day it is, every moment of every day God Inspires Shouts of Joy.  I only need to make that my song.

There is a River Whose Streams Make Glad the City of God.  What a beautiful image of the constant, gentle, outpouring of refreshing spiritual blessings that flow from the place God dwells!

Are you in need of refreshing?  Have you grown weary from the daily grind?  Has the burden of illness or sadness become so heavy that you have forgotten what it’s like to be without this weight?

God gives us this lovely reminder that where He is, there is peace.  His blessings pour out from this heavenly place–steady, like a river.  They overflow, sustain, heal and refresh our souls.   There is a River Whose Streams Make Glad the City of God and we will find it’s as close as the nearest prayer.  Come to the river…

No Fear of Turmoil–that’s what peace (i.e. the Hebrew word shalom) with God gives us.  No matter what life churns up our way, we can still be in the center of God’s peace.

Mark 4:35 That day when evening came, [Jesus] said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” 39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

Jesus was sleeping while a furious storm raged.  He knew there was no fear of turmoil.  Jesus’ disciples would have known there was no fear of turmoil as well, had they truly realized who was in the boat with them.

These disciples, professional fishermen, had likely experienced choppy seas before.  Their familiarity with circumstances such as these only served to increase their distress because they knew sometimes, rough seas do not bode well for the outcome of fishermen.  They panic, wake up Jesus to make inquiry and indeed, their question seems incredibly rude.  “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

Interestingly, it’s a failure of faith because they failed to know Jesus on two counts: first as Lord over nature, and second as the most loving and merciful human being to walk the face of the planet because He’s God and God is merciful.  The way they asked the question in Greek would have expected the answer, “Yes, of course I care.”  It would have required different wording to expect the answer, “You’re right.  I don’t.”  It’s a nuance lost in English.

If the disciples weren’t being intentionally insulting, what was going on?  They were relying upon what they saw instead of Who they knew.  Had they seen Jesus as God Incarnate, they would have known that their boat was the safest place to be…because in the boat, they were with God Himself.  Their second failure of faith was a refusal to believe that God is merciful beyond measure.

What should we take away from a passage like this or the one pictured below?  We should know that no matter what our circumstances show, the safest place to be is in the boat with Jesus.  Circumstances can lie to us, but even if our entire culture IS falling apart and we’re careening toward the end of days, we need to believe that God will be merciful to disciples of Jesus because it’s His character to do so.  Peace with a merciful God leads to our having No Fear of Turmoil.

An Ever-Present Help in Trouble: That’s God’s role in our lives.  We’ve been assured that we’ll have all kinds of troubles in this world–and indeed, we do!  But we are reminded that He’s got it covered.  Christians have nothing to fear.  Not even of death.

Are you in trouble?  Are you afraid of the future?  Are you worried about the world around you?  Are you concerned that your life and welfare are in the balance?  You can rest even in the storm because God is An Ever-Present Help in Trouble.

The Time Will Come when there will be a clear dividing line in American culture between those who love God and those who hate Him; between those who love the truth and those who hate it; between those who seek honesty and those who’d prefer to hear lies, lies, sweet little lies; and between the sheep and the goats.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” Matthew 25:31-33

Do you know what happens in the rest of that story (Matthew 25: 34-46)?  Judgment.  By that time, choosing a side will be impossible.  Your decision will be final with no turning back.

We’re still in the Venn-diagram phase with some who have already chosen where they stand and a pool of people who are spiritually undecided in the middle.  I hope they’re listening and reading right now because the time will come when we’ll be out of time.  Jesus will return–this time as Judge!

Today we have a clear choice: To come to the Truth and listen to His wisdom, or gather teachers around us to tell us what we want to hear.

What choice will you make?

God judged evil on the Cross.  The verdict has already been issued.  The Verdict? Light has Come.  In His coming, death has been defeated.  Jesus Christ, the Light of the World, died to make that happen.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).

Yes, Jesus came as the Way and the Truth and the Life, but evil wants nothing to do with the truth, even if it is the only way to genuine life.  Every piece of worldly evidence tells us that.

Evil always embraces evil.  No amount of Light will convince some.  They scoff.  They ridicule.  They mock.  And they lie, probably more than they realize.  The biggest lie of all is not believing the Judge; not believing the verdict; and not believing in Jesus, the Light of men.  Men have not understood it and have done so intentionally.  There will be sentencing of the lawless and evil ones since no one has another way of getting around the verdict.

Christians believe that God is a God of mercy, but also a God of justice.  For Him to love justice is for Him to hate evil.  So God judged it.  But His mercy calls out to those who haven’t entered the sentencing phase (which always follows the verdict).  Since that day is yet to come,  God extends mercy patiently, waiting for us to see the Light and agree with the verdict that Jesus’ death was God’s judgment against human evil.

Will we come into that Light as repentant sinners, or will we continue to fight the Judge until sentencing begins?  It is a question each of us will answer.

I struggle with the way our culture is going.  Gain the World; Forfeit Your Soul.  It sums up America as I observe it.  Everywhere I look, it seems there are people out to gain power, prestige, prominence, and control for themselves.  We see it in politics, the popular media, at crime scenes, and in the city streets.

Instead of running to help someone who is hurting (or staying out of the way of those who are trying to help), we have become a generation of people who crowd into the too-close-for-comfort-zones with our smart phones to capture the video clip, upload it really fast, and then dream it goes viral.  O to be famous for 15 minutes…

What is especially troubling is how often this is done at the expense of a person’s conscience and any sense of moral concern for others!  Wouldn’t it be better to ensure the timely arrival of valued help by calling 911 instead of filming for YouTube or posting your status to Facebook?

If Jesus were to return in the moment of a crisis, would He really give a rip about someone’s video clip or Facebook status?  Gain the World; Forfeit Your Soul.