Every Day Light

[Judy Harder]

October 17

The best possible peace...
Mark 4:35-41
"... the waves broke over the boat ... Jesus was in the stern, sleeping ..." (vv.37-38)

We continue examining the essential differences between supernatural peace and certain other states of mind. Peace is not withdrawal. At recurring intervals in the life of the Christian Church, various forms of withdrawal have been practiced with a view to discovering inner peace. Early Methodism was almost wrecked by a form of it known as "stillness." The idea was to withdraw from all activity and remain "still" before the Lord. This kind of "stillness" is not to be confused with the supernatural peace which the Spirit brings to the hearts of God's people. "Stillness" is something achieved; peace is something given.

Someone has said: "He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace." Note the words: "whose spirit is entering into living peace." Peace, to be peace, must be a living peace -- not a dead peace of retreat out of responsibility, or an encasement into insensibility. Supernatural peace is, like joy -- entirely independent of circumstances. This truth is brought out most clearly in today's passage. As the wind whips up the waves, the Son of God remains asleep in the stern of the boat. Why the emphasis on the "stern"? I am told that this is the worst place to be when a boat is being tossed about by a storm. Yet in the worst possible place, Jesus enjoyed the best possible peace -- sleep. The peace of God does not require a mold of easy circumstances in which to operate. Nothing can push it under and nothing can push it over.

Prayer:
O Master, how I long for the same inner calmness and tranquility that pervaded Your life when You were here on earth. But I know the secret -- I must let You live Your life more fully in me. Help me to do that -- today and every day. Amen.

For Further Study
Eph. 2:1-14; John 14:27; 16:33
1. What did Jesus say about His peace?
2. Where must our peace be established?

[Judy Harder]

October 18
How peace continues...
Isaiah 26:1-12
"You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you ..." (v.3, NKJV)

We ended yesterday by saying that our Lord enjoyed the best possible peace -- sleep -- in the worst possible place -- the stern of the boat. We see another demonstration of this deep serenity our Lord enjoyed when, as the ugly arms of the Cross stretched out to take Him, He said: "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you" (John 14:27, NKJV). Galilee in storm and Calvary in darkness both set it off. The issue we must now face is this -- although peace is something given rather than something achieved, its continuance is guaranteed only as we fulfill certain conditions. If, for example, we decide to go on an immoral spree, we will soon find that peace will elude us. Scripture says: "There is no peace ... for the wicked" (Isa. 57:21, NKJV). Why? Because peace is conditional on obedience to morality -- biblical morality.

Our text for today gives us another condition on which continuing peace depends: "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you." Note the words -- "stayed on you." This shows that in order to enjoy continuous peace, there must be a conscious centering on God. He must not be the place of occasional reference but of continuous reference. Furthermore, He must be the center of our trust: "because he trusts in you." W. B. Yeats tells in these gripping lines the results of a lack of trust in God:Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ...

Things really do fall apart when the center does not hold -- and no center will hold if the center is not fixed on God.

Prayer:
O God, I see that unless I am held at the center of my being, then I am just not held. Hold me at my center, dear Lord -- today and every day. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.

For Further Study
Heb. 4; Psa. 116:7; Matt. 11:29
1. What will we receive as we accept Christ's yoke?
2. What prevented the children of Israel from fully entering into their rest?

[Judy Harder]

October 19
Wholehearted belief
Mark 11:12-26
" 'Have faith in God,' Jesus answered" (v.22)

Today we look at another condition on which continuing peace depends -- complete and utter faith in God. A Christian who truly believes in God -- not pretends to believe, or half-believes -- will inevitably enjoy and experience God's perfect peace. But what does it mean to believe in God? What are the basic requirements?A Christian believes -- and believes wholeheartedly -- that Jesus is God and that He is the Savior of the world (Rom. 10:9). He believes also that the universe is in the keeping of Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Love, and that God is directing the course of his individual life (Psa. 139:16). He believes, too, that nothing can happen in the universe except as God permits. If it were possible to conceive of anything out of which God could not bring good, then God would not permit it (Rom. 8:28). In the deepest possible sense, the Christian therefore says:"Whate'er events betideThy will they all perform."A Christian believes, further, that God holds the universe together. Man may be free but his freedom is limited. He cannot extinguish the stars, pluck the sun from the sky, blow the earth to smithereens with atomic explosions, quench love in a mother's heart, prevent the return of spring or defeat the purpose of God which was revealed at Calvary. God would not allow any of the things I have listed, for they would be contrary to His design for the universe. The peace of a Christian is therefore set deep in the rock of reality. It is based on his complete and utter faith in God.

Prayer:
Gracious and loving heavenly Father, help me to check on my faith this day and see whether I am really believing or just pretending to believe. I want to be done with all pretense. O Lord, increase my faith. Amen.

For Further Study
Heb. 11; Psa. 37:5; 1 John 5:4
1. In what areas of your Christian life are you exercising faith?
2. Where does our victory stem from?

[Judy Harder]

October 20
Three attitudes to God's will
Acts 22:1-16
"... The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will ..." (v.14)

Another condition of continuing peace in the heart of a Christian is this -- joyful abandonment to the Father's will. There are three main attitudes to the will of God found among believers. Some resign themselves to God's will, some rebel against God's will and some rejoice in God's will.

Those who resign themselves to it are the people who, having been caught up in some trouble or difficulty, fail to see that divine love and wisdom are at work, redeeming every situation and turning it to good -- hence their hearts are filled with irritation and resentment. Eventually they get over it and by grace resign themselves to the will of God. They are not happy at what God has allowed, but they resign themselves to "putting up with the inevitable." One hears them say in half-hearted and grudging tones: "Well, I'm resigned to it now." But resignation is not a full Christian grace; beneath it lies an unconquered and unsubmissive spirit.

Others, as we said, rebel against the will of God. These are the people who don't just "put up with the inevitable" but take up arms against God and let Him know that they do not believe He is working in their best interests. Over the years I have met many Christians like this. They do not bring out the rebellion they feel toward God in their conversations with other Christians or even in their public prayers, but it is quietly suppressed and can break out at any time. Such people never enjoy the peace of God because, quite simply, they have never truly believed that divine love and wisdom can turn all things to good.

Prayer: O Father, Your Word is plowing deep into my life today. Help me to face up to what Your Spirit is saying to me. I don't just want my attitudes to be challenged; I want them to be changed. Change me, dear Lord -- into Your image. Amen.

For Further Study
Eph. 6:1-8; Heb. 13:20-21; Prov. 16:7
1. How should we carry out the will of God?
2. How are you carrying out the will of God?

[Judy Harder]

October 21
Utter abandonment
Luke 1:26-38
"... Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word ..." (v.38, NKJV)

Those who know peace are those who know how to rejoice in the divine will. It is the attitude of Mary who, in our text today, says: "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word."One great writer, Francis de Sales, puts it this way: "To rejoice in God's will suggests mobility -- the mobility of a voyager who moves with the motion of the vessel on which he has embarked. It suggests also the abandonment of a servant in attendance on his lord, going only where his master goes. It is the attitude of a child leaving to his mother the care of willing, choosing and acting for him, content to be in her safe and tender keeping." The biographer of Sadhu Sundar Singh, the great Indian Christian, says: "Realize that, to the Sadhu as to Paul, partnership with Christ was a passion and a privilege that transformed hardship, labor and loss from something which was to be accepted negatively as an unfortunate necessity into something positively welcomed for His sake -- and you will understand a little of the secret of the Sadhu's peace."Our Lord, of course, is once again the supreme example of this. As Robert Nicoll puts it: "He did not merely accept the will of God when it was brought to Him and laid upon Him. Rather, He went out to meet that loving will and fell upon its neck and kissed it." Saints down the ages have illustrated through their lives the quality of this ripened peace. Oh, that we, His present-day saints, might show it too.

Prayer:
O Father, teach me the art of utter abandonment to Your will. Help me to be like Mary -- not just willing, but enthusiastically willing. I ask this for Your own dear Name's sake. Amen.

For Further Study
Psa. 40:1-8; 143:10; Rom. 12:1
1. What was the psalmist's prayer?
2. What was the psalmist's response?

[Judy Harder]

October 22
Good temper
Ecclesiastes 7:1-12
"... and patience is better than pride." (v.

The fourth fruit of the Spirit is patience. The central meaning of this word (Greek: makrothumia) is "good temper." It denotes a person who does not easily "fly off the handle." He maintains good temper amid the flux and flow of human events.

One commentator says of this word: "This fourth fruit of the Spirit expresses the attitude to people which never loses patience with them, however unreasonable they may be, and never loses hope for them, however unlovely and unteachable they may be." Archbishop Trench defined the word as "a long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or to passion, the self-restraint which does not hastily retaliate a wrong." And Moffatt describes it as "the tenacity with which faith holds out."Good temper must not, however, be confused with apathy. In the days of the early Church, the group called the Stoics made indifference a virtue. They said: "Nothing is worth suffering for, so build a wall around your heart and keep out all sense of feeling." The early Christians did not share that view, however, for Christians care -- and because they cared, they suffered. Through the ministry of the Spirit in their lives, they found poise and good temper amidst their sufferings. The more we care, the more sensitive we will be to things that tend to block our goal of caring -- that is why the quality of patience is so essential. An evangelist addressing a meeting was subjected to persistent heckling. Unfortunately, he lost his temper -- and also his audience. They saw he had little to offer except words.

Prayer: O Father, help me to become a person of good temper. Dwell deep in me so that I shall be the peaceful exception amid the disturbed surroundings that I encounter day by day. Amen.

For Further Study
Num. 20:1-13; Luke 21:19; Rom. 12:12
1. What was the result of Moses' impatience?
2. What will be the result of our patience?

[Judy Harder]

October 23
Looking around with anger
Mark 3:1-6
"He looked round at them in anger ..." (v.5)

Did Jesus ever lose His temper? Some, looking at the passage before us today, might think so. In fact, I once heard a Christian defending his temper by saying: "If Jesus could not control His temper when faced with the scorn of the Pharisees in Mark 3, why should I be condemned for my inability to control mine?"Did the behavior of Jesus on this occasion result from a loss of temper? Of course not. One luminous phrase lights up the story and puts the matter in its proper perspective: "being grieved by the hardness of their hearts" (v.5, NKJV). The reason why Jesus "looked around at them with anger" was because He was "grieved by the hardness of their hearts." The cause of His anger was grief, not loss of temper -- grief at their insensibility to human need. It was grief at what was happening to someone else, not personal pique at what was happening to Him.

Whenever we get angry, it is usually because our ego has been wounded and hits back, not in redemption but in retaliation. There is a temper that is redemptive and there is a temper that is retaliatory. The redemptive temper burns with the steady fire of redemptive intention; the retaliatory temper simply burns you up. It was intended to burn the other person up, but all it serves to do is to burn you. Patience, the fruit of the Spirit, works in us -- if we let it -- to temper our purposes to the Kingdom, and to Kingdom purposes alone.

Prayer:
My Father and my God, dwell so deeply in me by Your Spirit that my temper shall be tempered and produce no tempests -- either in myself or in others. For Jesus' sake I ask it. Amen.

For Further Study
Eph. 4:1-27; Prov. 19:11; Eccl. 7:9
1. How can we be angry without committing sin?
2. Why is it important "not to let the sun go down on our wrath"?

[Judy Harder]

October 24
How Jesus handled tension
Luke 12:35-53
"But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!" (v.50)

Jesus' behavior when He looked around at the Pharisees "with anger" was not the result of a bad temper but the fulfilling of a redemptive purpose. The cutting was not to hurt, but to heal. When we display anger, it is usually for purposes of destruction rather than construction.

Although Jesus was free from bad temper, however, He was not free from tension, that is: "a state of moderate stress." Moffatt, in fact, translates our text for today in this way: "What tension I suffer, till it is all over!" A certain amount of tension is a necessary part of life. Jesus experienced it, and so will we. And it is not necessarily a bad thing. The violin string that is free from tension is incapable of music, but when tightened gives forth a sound that delights the ear. The tension that Jesus felt was a tension that was harnessed to the interest of others. He was on His way to a cross and the tension was not to be loosed until He pronounced the words: "It is finished."The tension, however, did not leave Him frustrated and bad-tempered; it left Him calm and composed, with a prayer for the forgiveness of His enemies upon His lips. It drove Him, not to pieces, but to peace -- the peace of achievement and victory. This was so because the tension was harnessed to God's perfect will -- hence it was a constructive urge. Unfortunately, many of our tensions drive us, not toward God's will but toward our own will. We are more concerned for ourselves than for the divine interests. This kind of driving will succeed only in driving us "nuts."

Prayer:
Dear Lord and Master, teach me how to harness my tensions to Your purposes, so that they are transformed into rhythm and song. In Christ's Name I ask it. Amen.

For Further Study
1 Cor. 9:1-16; John 9:4; 2 Cor. 5:14
1. What tension did Paul feel?
2. What does the word "compel" convey?

[Judy Harder]

October 25
"Two ways to honk a horn"
James 1:19-27
"... man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires." (v.20)

We continue meditating on the fourth fruit of the Spirit -- patience or good temper. "Temper," someone has said, "turns to bad or good according to what is behind it." Remember that the word "temper" simply means "a disposition of mind" and really requires the words "good" or "bad" to be prefixed to it if it is to be clearly identified. Dr. Stanley Jones says that there are two ways to honk a horn -- the Christian way and the non-Christian way. The Christian way calls attention to a situation; the non-Christian way not only calls attention to the situation but it also calls attention to what the honker feels about it. In the USA I once saw a sign on a car that said: "Honk away -- it's your ulcer." Ulcers are usually visible signs of an ulcerated spirit -- ulcerated by irritation and bad temper.

Whenever we lose our temper and take it out on people around us, we do the utmost harm, not to them, but to ourselves. The one who is out of sorts with someone else is usually out of sorts with himself. He projects his inner problems on to others and fails to see that the cause and remedy are in himself. I once witnessed a Sunday School superintendent lose his temper in a committee meeting, and when reprimanded by another for his bad spirit said: "I have to lose my temper in order to get anything done around here." Our text for today contradicts that view. Listen to it again, this time in the Phillips translation: "For man's temper is never the means of achieving God's true goodness." Wrong means lead to wrong ends -- inevitably.

Prayer:
O Father, help me to meet all impatience with patience, all hate with love, all grumpiness with joy and all bad temper with good temper. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.

For Further Study
Matt. 5:1-26; Psa. 37:8; Prov. 14:17
1. What did Jesus teach about anger?
2. Are you angry with anyone?

[Judy Harder]

October 26
"I got saved last night"
Ephesians 5:8-21
"... be filled with the Spirit ... always giving thanks to God the Father for everything ..." (vv.18 & 20)

The greatest single influence in turning a bad temper to a good temper is to be indwelt by the Spirit of God. Our text makes that abundantly plain. When the Spirit is allowed to dwell in us, He influences our reactions so that we respond to life's situations with praise rather than with pique.

A miner was notorious for his bad temper. His job was to look after the pit ponies, and whenever they did anything wrong, he would swear and hit out at them with a stick. When he got like this, strong men would keep out of his way, for they knew that he could as easily turn on them as he did on the horses.

One night he went to a Welsh revival meeting, got gloriously converted and experienced a mighty encounter with the Holy Spirit. Next day, at work, one of the horses stepped on his foot. The men with him waited for the explosion -- but nothing happened. One man asked: "Are you sick?" "No," replied the miner, "why do you ask?" "Well," said the man, "I know how quickly you get upset about things, and when the horse stepped on your foot and you didn't lose your temper, I thought you must be unwell." "I'm not unwell," said the miner, "I got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit last night."There is an interesting moment recorded in the life of Saul in 1 Samuel 10:27: "But some rebels said, 'How can this man save us?' So they despised him, and brought him no presents. But he held his peace" (NKJV). Had Saul maintained that same spirit, he would have been a great man!

Prayer:
Dear Father, let Your Spirit invade and take up His abode deep within me, so that in the hour of pressure and crisis, I shall react to everything in a truly Christian way. In Christ's Name I pray. Amen.

For Further Study
John 14:1-17; Ezek. 36:27; 1 Cor. 3:16
1. What did Jesus say concerning the Holy Spirit?
2. What have we become?