Morning, good day everyone. It is day 26 and this is entitled Destroying Authority
that Establishes Chaos. Restful one, listen with your spirit to the Word of
God for you. Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist,
with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the
readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up
the shield of faith with which you can establish all the flaming arrows of the
evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the
Word of God, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers
and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the
saints. Ephesians 6, 14 through 18. This well-known portion of Scripture on
spiritual warfare describes the armor of the believer. Look at the feet fitted
with the readiness of the gospel of peace. Peace destroys the authority that
establishes chaos. The enemy creates chaos through division and alienation. He
fractures relationships, subtly or overtly, between man and God, between
people, in every facet of society, even in man's relationship with nature. We must
war against the enemy who creates chaos and destroys his authority to establish
chaos. To have authority against the demonic structure that establishes chaos,
we must live a lifestyle of being peacemakers, of knowing how to bring
peace of God to bear on the fragmentation of our culture. Jesus
modeled this. At times, he was assertive. At times, he was compassionate. At times,
he forgave the most overt sinner, and at times, he confronted the seemingly
righteous religious structure. Jesus used different tools to destroy the
authority structures that brings chaos. I bless you, restful one, with being a
student of the peacemaking skills of Jesus Christ. I bless you with having
ears to hear what the Spirit is saying in your spirit, and I bless you with
improving your skill of hearing your Father's voice. I bless you with being
led by your Father in situations where there is chaos, division, and alienation,
so that you have opportunity often to practice the art of being a peacemaker. I
bless you with well-fitted shoes on your feet that are ready to bring the gospel
of peace in all of its different colors and forms upon a multitude of situations
around you. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called
sons of God. Matthew 5, 9. I bless you to aspire to that title, that you would be
called a son of God because you have mastered the art of being a peacemaker. I
bless you to destroy the spiritual structure that authorizes chaos in every
situation where people don't want peace, where people are turning against you and
the things of God. God will bring you into a multitude of situations like that,
for this world is full of chaos, brokenness, and alienation. The structures
of the enemy are everywhere. I bless you with endurance in peacemaking, because
being a peacemaker is a difficult thing.
Rest for one, I bless you with honing your peacemaking skills as he takes you
through one apprenticeship after another, grooming you to wear the title of
peacemaker as a son of God. I bless you with being a peacemaker who has the
spiritual authority to demolish the strongholds which bring chaos into your
family and your community. I bless you with setting your face like Flint
towards the goal of being a peacemaker and being sought out because you have
high authority over the spiritual structures that bring chaos. I bless you
with having your feet shod with the readiness that comes from the gospel of
peace. I bless you with being one of the sons of God in the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, who was your prototype, your prototype. Lord, there are times when I
felt that the dictionary in heaven and the dictionary on earth have become
misaligned, or there's concepts that have kind of been imputed or work their
way in into our culture, especially not just society, but even in Christian
culture that being a peacemaker is to be somehow passive or conflict-averse.
We're not supposed to have conflict.
There was a season where I was in these strange situations and I started seeing these aspects of which there was almost like an aggressive enforcement or, or where you were making peace in a sense where you were imputing peace into situations.
Not just trying to placate people to try to keep everybody from to get along. Can't we all just get along?
There are cultures and other religions in particular where this acquiescent way of being is like the lukewarm water that you want to spit out. They have, and they just do not go well.
The Islamic culture in particular does not at all value these things and looks at it as weakness and there's a, there's an element in which some of this way of being where our Christian culture and their culture has kind of set a table where we are at a disadvantage in a sense.
Just how we have mitigated certain circumstances. But there's an aspect of the peacemaker that is a place where you're making enforcing peace, you're imputing peace in an area in a forceful way.
Just like almost like how the police are known as peace keepers. There's an active agent in it.
And that you as our model, sometimes, as they said, you are assertive. The same God that forgave, that drove out demons, the same God that which is a form of peace.
You drive the demons out and the peace can be. You're making space. But there is the same place where he healed the one, the same one where he knew all of the sins of the woman, the same one where he said those without, you know, without sin cast the first stone.
One that would, that would do miracles and say, go and sin no more. And the same, you know, man, the same Lord went and made a whip by hand and angrily chased people from the temple.
There's an aspect of who you are, even as a peacemaker, that we really don't know and understand.
And so many, including myself, have this wonderance in this, this affinity for that scripture that says that the all of creation is groaning for the manifestations of the sons of God.
There's whole, there's a whole movements in the past and even now that are all around the manifestation, the latter rain movement about being a sons of God that it's like, kind of like, for lack of better term, like being a superhero or something.
And it's not that it's not true at all. But it's so interesting if you, if you say, according to the greatest sermon that you ever gave is, well, some would say, and it would say that the peacemakers will be the sons of God, that there's an aspect of almost like a requirement, a building block to be a, to manifest the son of God that comes from being a peacemaker.
And that Lord under our feet, all the principalities and powers are under our feet. When we're seated with you in heavenly places that there's an aspect of peace that Lord you, the Prince of Peace would umpire our heart in peace.
And I believe as I'm looking, it's like a handshake of being able to be at rest, to be at peace, to be able to destabilize and destroy or displace, it would be another word, the chaos for your order to release peace everywhere that we go.
Again, I don't know why every time I go to pray here, I end up with a Graham quote, Graham cook quote in my head, but I heard of once said by him, I thought often Lord of the fruit of the spirit, being a process of, of walking with you, or a reflection of a certain level of maturity,
or a reflection of a certain level of maturity.
Or at a minimum, just aspects of your personality, but it was kind of like, I don't know, passive.
And for lack of a better term, this is very mundane language, so very spiritual, but kind
of like, it was kind of like, not as exciting, let's say, as the gifts.
You have the gifts, and you have the fruit.
And I became aware that there was a linkage between the fruit and the gifts, that, Lord,
you don't want to give us more of the gifts than we have of the fruit, because we won't
be able to sustain it.
But I heard him describe the fruits of the Spirit as tornadic forces that circle around
us, and in a sense, doing destruction to the enemy, to his kingdom, and that there's
even an active place in which we can extend, spiritually speaking, into each situation
or into people's lives, aspects of the fruit of the Spirit that they need in that given
moment.
And with that in mind, therefore, as a fruit of the Spirit, which is another aspect of
your character and your nature, as the Prince of Peace, that we can extend or impute peace
into situations that are in utter chaos.
That in a sense, we can subdue the chaotic culture and structures of this world by the
enforcement or the encroachment or the insertion or activation of peace.
And sometimes, Lord, it appears that it can be as simple as engaging it.
Engaging, sitting, walking.
Being one with you in that place, and Lord, as a natural outcropping, for lack of a better
term, for sitting on what some call the seat of rest.
To be seated with you.
To be at rest in you.
At rest above all powers and principalities.
At rest that everything has already been accomplished.
Not in a passive way, as in peace is passive.
There's an active nature of rest.
There's an active way of being, of knowing, of resting, of being at peace.
This is a bit of a stretch, but I've heard it described that from folks that have reportedly,
you know, been to heaven, that the sea of glass, that I've always even tried to imagine,
what is a sea of glass, is really, it's just water that is so still that it's like glass.
It's a perfect reflection, and you can see completely right through it, because there's
no passage of time, there's no weather, so to speak, in heaven.
Well, Lord, we're 70-something percent water.
The Spirit of God hovered over the waters, and Lord, I pray that you would bring our
waters to peace in that same place, that internally, whether it's spiritually, whether
it's in our soul or in our bodies, that Lord, that for each person here that would come
to a place of peace and an understanding of peace, that Lord, an aspect of you and your
peace, an aspect of you as the Prince of Peace, that the Prince of Peace himself would release
that peace, and today's seed, and sow into each of these folks a new level of peace,
an aspect of peace as the peacemaker that has never been.
Lord, I firmly believe, as I've heard these teachings before, that there is something
terrifying about your sons and daughters coming into a reality and understanding of who they
are, of their real identity, and that real identity is, partially, is hidden in you.
There's an aspect of who they are that really comes from a greater understanding of who
you are.
And there's an aspect of who they are, we are, that comes from the unique way in which
you fashioned us.
If we're an ear, then help us to be an ear, for lack of a better term.
So Lord, let the Prince of Peace be our tutor today.
I pray for the peacemaking aspect of God as the subduing of this world, that it rests
upon us, but that we would actively engage into that place of peace as a peacemaker,
that everywhere we go we would release peace, that it would destroy the works of the enemy,
that there's a way in which you war, there's a way in which you seek vengeance, there's
a way in which you do things, Lord, that is contrary to how we would do them.
And there's something hidden in the aspect of being a peacemaker that unlocks so much
more than we could ever imagine.
Lord Jesus, the Prince of Peace, I pray and I ask of you today as the peacemaker, as the
umpire of our hearts, that you, Lord, would increase the peace that we have and we carry
and increase our capacity for, but that today you would teach us, you would open up some
aspect of being a peacemaker that we have never seen, heard, thought of, or imagined.
As we're entering into, and I know this is a very silly thing to say, Lord, but as we're
entering into the Christmas season, and yes, there's always the big Christ in the Christmas,
and I know that, Lord, you were not born on Christmas Day, most likely, right?
But in the year, in the place of giving up gifts, in the holiday spirit and all of that,
my silly, childish, childlike prayer is that today, Lord, that there be a gift, that this
aspect of imputing, of releasing something of you, of being a peacemaker, as a gift to
be released to each and every one, and that you would help us to find it and unwrap it,
but Lord, that we would receive it as a gift, that you're giving it to us, that it's ours,
and that we don't have to work for it or labor for it, and that there's an aspect of being a
peacemaker and living at peace and living at rest that unlocks and is a key to great sonship power
and to the destroying of things here, to move in the opposite spirit, as it's been said,
to chaos, which is peace, and that we bring order. We bless you and we love you, in Jesus' name.