LEARNING TO GUARD YOUR PEACE
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”
Prayer is the first way we guard our peace. Letting God know all about what is troubling us, is the invitation for his intervention.
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” Philippians 4:6-8 NLT
PRAYER
Tell God all about it! Every single detail, leaving nothing out. God is into the details of our lives. He is delighted when we go to him first.
We should also ask others in the faith to pray as well, because we understand that when two people agree, touching anything on earth, that it will be done by our Heavenly Father!
As a side note please let me address something that I often see especially on Facebook.
UNSPOKEN REQUESTS
Let’s be honest we don’t know all the people personally that we’re friends with on Facebook; and we don’t know where they are standing with God. We don’t want just anyone praying into our situations. We want the right people.
You want people who know how to pray. The Bible says the effective prayers of a righteous person has great effects.
I truly don’t believe it’s biblical to pray for unspoken requests. Is it thoughtful, yes, biblical no.
I understand the premise behind it, but I truly believe that we need to reach out to people that we know will grab the horns of the altar and get serious about our needs. We don’t want prayers going up to heaven that are in all different directions -we want the right people praying in the same direction.
We must tell God details and we cannot agree with someone in prayer if we don’t know those details.
Another translation in the above Scripture says “make your requests known.”
I do believe that having the right people praying specific requests will help guard your peace.
Ok- enough about that.
Notice the second part of this scripture? And now dear brothers and sisters one final thing:
“FIX your thoughts on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and admirable. THINK about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”
If we’re going to keep God’s peace we must learn how to FIX our thoughts and GUARD our minds.
PLACE THE GUARD OF PEACE AT THE DOOR
Let the Peace of God do His job as you turn your focus to Him.
Did you know you are constantly receiving and transmitting information? Whether you’re driving down the road looking at a car, reading a sign, watching the television, looking at the internet or reading a book, you are constantly receiving information and processing it.
Depending on your intentionality to guard this information, you may be taking in way more negativity than you are aware of. This is where the guards must now be stationed at the doors of your heart and mind.
Refuse to allow outside forces access to the way you feel or the way your think. Shift your focus to your favorite scriptures. LET THE PEACE OF GOD do the work as you keep YOUR MIND on Him.
Lastly, I want you to guard your words. Not only do we receive information but we transmit it. We have to make sure that we are not negating what we are praying for by releasing negative confessions. Pay attention to what comes out of your mouth, so you are doing your part to guard your peace.
I love you my friends! I pray you experience the peace that goes beyond anything you can fathom as you guard your heart and mind and as you keep your focus on Jesus this week.