add advent - peace

pype.dev/content/blog/advent-2024---peace.md

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+---
+date: 2024-12-06 15:26:15
+templateKey: blog-post
+title: Advent 2024 - Peace
+published: False
+tags:
+  - faith
+---
+
+## Scripture
+
+Luke 2:14 (ESV): 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
+
+## Edification
+
+There is a word we probably know - Shalom. It's the Hebrew word we translate often as "peace". But when I hear "peace" I often think about being calm - and that oversimplifies Shalom... I think a more appropriate understanding is "things are as they are supposed to be".
+
+In the Garden, we see Shalom - the Lord partnering with humanity to steward the earth, to make things as they were supposed to be...
+
+You all know we messed that up, Shalom was broken and humanity was exiled.
+
+But we have a Great Healer.
+
+Jesus is Lord of all, King of Heaven and Earth, Ruler of your lives and mine, and he is the Prince of Peace
+
+Things in our lives are probably not often as they are supposed to be... We get sick, worry about bills, experience tragedy, and weather the storms of life. But there is hope - confident expectation - that peace already has been, and will continue to be, restored to those whom Jesus chooses, the ones with whom he is pleased.
+
+John records a lot before telling us about the cross, and I won't recount that in this short edification. But he recalls a hopeful word from the Lord -
+
+John 16:33 (LEB): 33 I \[Jesus\] have said these things to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have affliction, but have courage! I have conquered the world.”
+
+This season, and this week of Advent, I pray God presses the reality, and the hope for, peace, the expectation of Shalom, deeper into my heart. I pray the Spirit guides us all to bring the will of God to earth as it is in Heaven
+
+Finally I pray we may all be given, and accept, the conviction of Paul -
+
+Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Our present trials are not on an equal scale with the glory of heaven
+
+May the rest, the peace, the Shalom that Jesus gives to his followers be with you all. Amen.