Where does Peace come from?

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The Lion will lay down with a lamb and a child will play with a Cobra.

Highway to the danger zone!

 

When Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” In John 20:21 the key word in this verse is “Peace.”

 

The promise of peace is for those who God has sovereignly sent into the world with no agenda of their own but the will of God.

 

A man of peace is one who is “Sent” by God into the world with power and authority “Just as Jesus” was sent by God the Father. There is a sense of power and authority that makes an ordinary man an extraordinary man like the mythological “Atlas” who carried the world on his shoulder.

 

A “Sent one” is a man that knows that in and by himself he is nothing. Then as the years go by his sense of worthlessness increases but at the same time he knows he is loved by God and was created by God and for God.

 

He knows to be under authority, therefore has authority over others.

He causes others to scratch and shake their heads as only an inheritor of “Peace” can do in quietness and confidence.

 

So rich, yet so poor.

Having all things a prayer away, standing in the gap keeping one foot in the Rocky soil of the kingdom of God and the other in the slimy pit of mud.

He is a fearless man that makes the prophets of Baal run for their lives even though he himself runs from a wicked woman when he forgets “He is a sent one by God.”

 

By faith and obedience in a childlike manner, he enjoys sitting with the powerful of the Land and this truth is what sustains him: “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” John 20:21. Knowing this verse has made him “A debtor.” He is in this world like Jesus, not to pay for his own debt but someone else’s debt.

 

“One who is sent by God” is one whose debts have been paid by Jesus.

“He is more than willing to cancel “ANY DEBT” from his fellow believers.

 

If salvation is by grace through faith and this not of yourself it is because even faith is a gift of God. Then salvation is once again from God who was reconciling the world unto himself. He has given to us the ministry of reconciliation as if God himself were begging through us to be reconciled to him.

 

Many years ago, I heard a harmful Theology from a man who said: “God does not forgive an unrepentant sin.” In my zeal to have an airtight theology, I accepted this concept as “Gospel truth.”

 

Shortly after the death of my wife, seven years ago “Some people scratched my brand new shining car.” Although I did not slap the little hands with my adult hands, I have been holding grudges that is killing me to the point that I might need amputation of my legs to save my life. (Spiritual warfare has an effect over the physical members of my body.) It is not the fear of amputation that is causing me to write this letter, but it is to be truthful to myself.

 

If I have been sent by God as Jesus, then the job description of Jesus is also mine to a certain extent. “I am here in this world to die for the debts of others as unconditionally and effectively and irresistibly as Jesus did when we were still sinners.” If I am still hurt by pain inflicted on me by betrayal and other sins... I am not dead in Christ yet.

 

Dead people do not have any feelings. If I am still hurt, that means that I am still alive to my own will and care more about “the shining car and the scratches on a lifeless vehicle.” Only Jesus should live in my heart. There is no room for Jesus and my ego in the throne of my life.

 

My only duty as representative of Jesus is to pray for them as Jesus prayed.

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

The Royal Law of Love makes me a beggar as if I would need their repentance to forgive them. The Love of God constrains me to pray the same prayer. 

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

 

We have no other testimony to give to a dying world but to dispense grace as if we were of God and sent by the same God of Jesus.

GOD DID NOT SEND HIS SON INTO THE WORLD TO CONDEMN THE WORLD BUT TO SAVE THE WORLD THROUGH HIM. John 3:17.

 

There is a misconception in our understanding of grace, forgiveness and of repentance. “We buy cheap but we sell high.”

I believe the world should have been won over if we would have preached the Gospel of Grace and love instead of the gospel of fire and brimstone.

 

I surrender more than willingly to a loving God who so loved me that he incarnates himself in his one and only little boy Jesus for my sake. No one who is still angry and wanting to tear me apart “rightfully” can die for my sins.

 

If fear is the beginning of wisdom, then God has done a great job. I am afraid of him. In fact, I am so terrified and that is no secret. Then as Aristotle said, “How can anyone love him whom he fears?”

Let us not go too far and think of Charles Krauthammer who recently died and said: “I do not believe in God ...but I am terrified of him.”

 

When in ignorance and unbelief you swim safely at the edge of the seashore, think not dear soul that the middle of the Ocean will drown you just because your foot does not touch the bottom. “The deep is more of the shallow.”

 

You will never be more wet at the edge than in the middle of the Ocean.

No matter where I find myself, dear Lord, please do not let me forget that you came into the world not to condemn the world but to save the world through Jesus. When we were still in our sins ... yes, when we needed a savior ...When we needed love more than anything else.  When no one could have saved us but you alone.

That the World deserved condemnation? Yes!!

 

But Jesus did not come to condemn the world but to save the world.

What the world needed was a savior, a friend, an advocate, a lawyer, a counselor, a mighty God, an everlasting father, a prince of peace.

The world was already under condemnation and sentenced to eternal damnation unable to do anything for himself with no one able to save.

 

It was then and there that the Hope of Israel was born as the Messiah in a manger in Bethlehem to save the world and not to condemn the world.

 

If you think of God as an angry God, remember his own words when he said: “This is my son whom I love, in him I am well pleased.” Since Jesus has pleased God on our behalf, it is not good to remember that God is still angry with us.

The wrath of God has already been satisfied in Jesus the savior of the world, your savior and mine.

 

Personal notes to those dearly beloved who have offended me badly. For seven years I have waited for you to just say to me “I am sorry.” It has not happened and I have entrenched myself in the foxhole of self-righteousness. I do not want you to come to my funeral or weep my departure.

 

Then Nathaniel, “The Gift of God” as his name means, said to me “Satan will then have the victory dad.” The sole Idea to cause Satan to laugh at Jesus infuriated me the most so that I thought of WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?)

 

Jesus would have tightened his jaws and with determination and peace would come down the mountain to meet those who handcuffed him and go to the cross to deliver the greatest prayer that conquered my life.

“Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

 

You also are forgiven regardless of your capacity at the present time to repent. 

Should they have known Jesus as God the Son, they would have not crucified the glorious Son of God. The sins of those predestined unto salvation are already dealt with from before the foundation of the world, long before we were able to do anything good or bad.

 

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Jesus.

 

This was a follower of Jesus on duty.

 

Gerry Gutierrez.

 

My Gaba and Katherine.