Peace

I love this quote about peace:
'No more able are we to drive the rain back into the clouds by holding hands to the sky…Or stretch a rainbow’s colors wide by scurrying to grasp its tails…Or force the tides to retreat by running at the sea…No more capable of these feats are we, than to pursue and capture peace.'

Samantha Reed says:
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15 NIV).

If we’re to find peace, we must become a pupil of He who is our Peace, Jesus Christ. He who is the Word. And this bit of Word,“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,” is a fine educator.

This truth teaches us to slow down. Those two strong words, “let” and “rule” mean to “umpire” our hurried heart. So when circumstances crumble and we worriedly scramble to right them, we are taught to pause and call our heart to peace. How do we do this? Through intimate knowledge of He who is our Peace.

Christ is just, as Esther’s courage and Haman’s defeat reflects. (Esther 7)

Christ redeems, as Job’s great loss and even greater gain assures. (Job 42:7-17)

Christ is trustworthy, as His promised resurrection proves. (Matthew 28:1-10)

Christ controls the storms, as calmed winds and waves attest. (Mark 4:35-41)

Christ is... how can I fill in the blank? Christ heals...Christ loves...Christ forgives...

Laminin

A doctor-friend wrote:
A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio...and I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned.....but I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want. I will share anyway.
He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is...how He spoke the universe into being...how He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire...etc. Etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) ....and I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking....'How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???'
Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.
And then I lost my breath.
And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!!
It was because he started talking about laminin.
I knew about laminin.. Here is how wikipedia describes them :'Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue.' You see....laminins are what hold us together....LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell.. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what laminin LOOKED LIKE.
But now I do.
And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already)......
Here is what the structure of laminin looks like....AND THIS IS NOT a 'Christian portrayal' of it....if you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see....
Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!!
Amazing.
The glue that holds us together...ALL of us....is in the shape of the cross.
Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind.
'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth , visible and invisible,
Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
All things were created by him and for him.
He is before all things,
And in him all things HOLD TOGETHER. '
Colossians 1:15-17.
Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool.
Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together...one cell to another....by the cross..

You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin 'glue' would look like long before Adam even breathed his first breath!!
" Faith is not knowing what the future holds,
but knowing who holds the future."
I wanted you to know and to understand that YOU are being held together by the cross of Jesus Christ! His love! His forgiveness and His marvelous power!

Peace

There is something incredibly attractive about a peaceful person: someone who is at ease with themself, at peace with who they are.

There is something incredibly attractive about a group of Christians who are at peace with one another. People entering the walls of a convent or monastery sense this: there is often an air of serenity which reaches beyond the obvious. An intangible sense of harmony seems to pervade the stones.

Attaining peace has to be worked for:

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.
Colossians 3:12-1 7, The Message

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
Ephesians 4:3-5 (New International Version)

Make every effort

So...stay connected!

Colossians 2:18-20 (New International Version)
Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.
Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules...

or, as The Message puts it:
Don't tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are. They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.

It's very easy to become so enthusiastic about our own beliefs that we take pride in them: we want everyone to agree with us and pursue the same goals, however spiritual they are. But in the end, we have to defer to each other as being part of the body: For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. (Romans 12:3 - 5, NIV)
Philippians 2:3 sums it up beautifully:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Christ holds us together - in more ways than one!

This is from Colossians 1:3 - 20, more or less. It's from The Message - I'm not sure I like this particular section as much as in the NIV - it resonates less, but it's different enough to make me think:

Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can't quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you! We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians. The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope.

The Message is as true among you today as when you first heard it. It doesn't diminish or weaken over time. It's the same all over the world. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger...

Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.