Surrounded By God's Peace

Surrounded by God’s Peace

Psalms 125 K.J.V.

They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.

2 As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.

3 For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity.

4 Do good, O LORD, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in their hearts.

5 As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: but peace shall be upon Israel.

Message:

Sadly summer is almost over and we find ourselves surrounded by the routine list of responsibilities we were able to suspend over the summer break.

You may be feeling overwhelmed or unprepared for jumping back into the routine pace of life that you were briefly able to ignore.

It may feel like jumping onto a tread mill that is going at full speed as you are still trying to tie your running shoes.

But here it is - full throttle coming at you day by day and moment by moment – your life exploding all over your day planner and invading that peace and serenity you enjoyed throughout the summer months.

Well don’t despair because you are surrounded by God’s presence and He is ready, willing and able to help you survive and thrive through the hectic pace that life demands of all of us.

Our Heavenly Father reminds us in Psalm 125 that we do not have to take on the world all by ourselves.

In fact God does most of the work as we trust in Him surrounded by His strength, majesty, and protection every single day.

The challenge is to put ALL of our Trust in Him and not rely so much in our own strength and abilities.

The Lord is our mountain of hope and source of strength to equip us for the hectic demands and responsibilities that are so often the routine of our daily living.

The Lord recognizes that when you place your trust in Him you are putting something sacred into His hands.

For God to abandon your trust in Him would be like God removing Mount Zion from Jerusalem.

Psalm 125 verse 2 tells us that such a thing will never happen.

God sees Mount Zion as sacred to Him and God sees your trust as something sacred to you and He will honor and keep it forever.

To make the comparison even clearer we are told that God surrounds us in the same way that Jerusalem is surrounded by the mountains.

We are surrounded by the presence of God in our lives forever in the same way that Jerusalem is surrounded by the physical presence of mountains.

This reminds me of the little girl who was swooped up into her father’s arms with a big hug as he squeezed her and said “now I’ve got you” and the little girl returned her father’s embrace and said giggling and wiggling – “no Daddy now I’ve got all of you”

It’s about our perspective Saints are we fully trusting in our Fathers arms for protection and strength or do we resist being taken up in His embrace?

Some of us forget to squeeze back.

Mountains are very real, very large and very visible geological structures.

In the same way God’s spirit is very real, very large and very visible in our lives when we put our trust in Him.

We need to surrender our trust to God entirely and eternally without resisting.

We can demonstrate that surrender through our daily Bible reading, prayer life and the expression of our Christian witness in our daily living as our trust in Him is evidenced in very real, very physical ways and our faith grows from a hill into a mountain.

Our security is in our trusting God with our souls as well as our lives.

Are you living a mountain top kind of faith or are you trying to trudge up a hill in your own strength back on that tread mill?

We need to put our trust in God’s rod of righteousness in these days and not the rod of the wicked of this world as verses 3 and 4 tell us.

Psalm 23:4 reminds us of how God’s rod preserves us in this wicked world.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

This world is anxious to strike you with its rod and beat you at every opportunity whereas our Heavenly Father uses His rod to guide you and comfort you, by protecting you from this fallen world that is - the valley of the shadow of death.