Image via Wikipedia Peace with GodRejoice because you have peace with God! Celebrate God's forgiveness for you. Demonstrate God's peace to others through your relationships. Help your co-workers and family to meet their needs. Relieve the disappointments of others.
When have you taken the credit for what was really God's work in which you were merely an instrument?
We do the same; when we turn our life over to our God and Father, and yet worry or concern ourselves with how it is going. We must truly turn over our life to our Heavenly Father and not try to take control or feel responsible for results. If God always rescued those who were true to him. Christians would not need faith. There would be lines of selfish people ready to sign up.
(Daniel 3:16-18)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered: "Your Majesty, we will not try to defend ourselves. If the God whom we serve is able to save us from the blazing furnace and from your power than he will. But even if he doesn't, your Majesty may be sure that we will not worship your god..."
Daniel and his friends were men who stuck their necks out. This was not foolhardiness. They knew what they were doing. They had counted the cost. They had measured the risk. They were well aware what the outcome of their actions would be unless God miraculously intervened, as in fact He did. But these things did not move them. Once they were convinced that their stand was right, and that loyalty to their God required them to take it, then, in Oswald Chamber's phrase, they "smilingly washed their hands of the consequences." "We ought to obey God rather than men," said the apostles (Acts 5:29). "Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy," said Paul (Acts 20:24). This was precisely the spirit of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It is the spirit of all who know God. They may find the determination of the right course to take agonizingly difficult, but once they are clear on it they embrace it boldly and without hesitation. It does not worry them that others of God's people see the matter differently, and do not stand with them. (Were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego the only Jews who declined to worship Nebuchadnezzar's image? Nothing in their recorded words suggests that they either knew, or in the final analysis, cared. They were clear as to what they personally had to do, and that was enough for them.) By this test also we may measure our own knowledge of God.
(From Knowing God by J. L. Packer)
When have you taken the credit for what was really God's work in which you were merely an instrument?
We do the same; when we turn our life over to our God and Father, and yet worry or concern ourselves with how it is going. We must truly turn over our life to our Heavenly Father and not try to take control or feel responsible for results. If God always rescued those who were true to him. Christians would not need faith. There would be lines of selfish people ready to sign up.
(Daniel 3:16-18)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered: "Your Majesty, we will not try to defend ourselves. If the God whom we serve is able to save us from the blazing furnace and from your power than he will. But even if he doesn't, your Majesty may be sure that we will not worship your god..."
Daniel and his friends were men who stuck their necks out. This was not foolhardiness. They knew what they were doing. They had counted the cost. They had measured the risk. They were well aware what the outcome of their actions would be unless God miraculously intervened, as in fact He did. But these things did not move them. Once they were convinced that their stand was right, and that loyalty to their God required them to take it, then, in Oswald Chamber's phrase, they "smilingly washed their hands of the consequences." "We ought to obey God rather than men," said the apostles (Acts 5:29). "Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy," said Paul (Acts 20:24). This was precisely the spirit of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It is the spirit of all who know God. They may find the determination of the right course to take agonizingly difficult, but once they are clear on it they embrace it boldly and without hesitation. It does not worry them that others of God's people see the matter differently, and do not stand with them. (Were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego the only Jews who declined to worship Nebuchadnezzar's image? Nothing in their recorded words suggests that they either knew, or in the final analysis, cared. They were clear as to what they personally had to do, and that was enough for them.) By this test also we may measure our own knowledge of God.
(From Knowing God by J. L. Packer)
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