Peace, Brother!

I'm going to try this, and see if it works, meaning I want to say something and I hope I can communicate it without anyone misunderstanding what I am trying to say, so here goes. I'm glad that I was a part of the "peace generation." I was in the thick of the hippie movement when I attended college. (Well, it was thinning out in 1970, but still very much there.)
I was one who gave serious thought and stopped and talked to the people at the table in the Student Union with the sign on it that said, "Do you believe in war?" I was only 18 then, and I wanted to be able to answer that question for myself. I discovered that I do not believe in war, in the sense that I don't believe that people should kill each other. Although idealistic in a fallen world, I still don't believe that people should do it. My ideal is that no one would ever kill another human being on the planet, and I know it's your ideal, too.
The other day I got nostalgic about the generation that I had been born into, and so I got on You Tube and listened to a song called, "If You're Going to San Fransisco" by Scott Mckenzie. His voice is wonderful and the song itself is very melodic. It brought back memories of being so young and thinking that I really wanted to go there, and when I did, I definately would be wearing flowers in my hair. As far as there being a "love-in" there, I imagined that meant that everyone who would be there would all just get along, in the fashion of the late Rodney King, rest his soul. (I am aware that others pictured a "love-in" very differently.)
Seriously, the ideals were good: no war and people just getting along or living peacefully, loving each other. Of course as I 've grown up and see things from a spiritual perspective, I realize that only the Son of God, our Prince of Peace, will bring peace when He establishes the new heaven and the new earth. Won't that be great when men will beat their swords into plowshares, and make war no more, and all of creation on the new earth will be one with their Creator and one with each other? Can you imagine it? I missed going to San Fransisco, but I won't miss it when Jesus restores all things back to His perfect plan for mankind. What a true Love-in that will be when He comes back to get His beautiful Bride!!!

A Living Sacrifice

"If you aspire to be a person of consolation, if you want to share the priestly gift of sympathy, if you desire to go beyond giving commonplace comfort to a heart that is tempted, and if you long to go through the daily exchanges of life with the kind of tact that never inflicts pain, then you must be prepared to pay the price for a costly education-for like Christ, you must suffer." Frederick William Robertson.

Your Kingdom Come

     "Thy Kingdom Come..."-How does His Kingdom come? Some say we are to "take over" this world with our Christian ways and principles, and then Jesus will come back. But then Jesus also said, "My Kingdom is not of this world." Some claim by demonstrating signs and wonders and using our gifts, and "doing mighty exploits" is how His Kingdom comes. But then Jesus said that His Kingdom is not by observation.
     What if His Kingdom coming, the Kingdom Jesus said is "within", happens whenever our flesh (sin nature) yields to His Spirit, and is allowed to have the preeminence in us, and in that way His Kingdom comes through us, and is built that way? For example, if someone is pressed by a very frustrating situation, and instead of venting or trying to run away from it, instead calls on the power of God to endure it by demonstrating "patience" (the fruit of the Spirit) ? Could this be when His Kingdom comes, when we "let" it come through us? His ways are not our ways, He has told us.
     It seems like the deeper I go with the Lord, the more He shows me how my former understanding of His truths have been interpreted through my carnal mind, and He replaces them with spiritual understanding from His mind. When He does that, it is never flashy or self-exalting, but it is God exalting where I am the vessel through which He is showing Himself.
    Am I willing to accept this new understanding? Is demonstrating "patience", for example, in my daily life, before God and the on-looking host of heaven, "good enough" for me? If not, then I have alot more growing to do. Or should I say, alot more dying to do.
     Even so, come Lord Jesus, and take your place in me, so that You alone can truly be the King of your Kingdom so that all will know that you have come. Use me, as  your vessel, to demonstrate the pure and true values that comprise that Kingdom. Amen.