Jesus Is Lord

Perfect Peace

Jesus Is Lord, Sanctification

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” (Romans 5:1 ESV)

How often do you find yourself uttering or thinking the words, I just need a minute?

Recently, a dear woman and sister-in-Christ from my local church blessed a group of us moms with a devotional surrounding the topic of God’s peace. Peace had already been on my mind, as usual, as I seem to struggle with grasping the peace of the Lord through hectic days and the chaotic schedule that comes with rearing children. This time of the year seems to enhance the chaos that appears unrelenting in my mind.

I just need a minute, are words that I find myself echoing multiple times a day. What am I really yearning for? Peace.

Peace from what? Peace from noise, chaos, overstimulation in my mind, ever-changing schedules that appear disorderly and out of control, the mundane of the day—laundry, cooking, dishes, sweeping, schedule planning, homeschooling, taxi-driving—repeat.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I am blessed beyond what I could have ever fathomed for my life.

But.

I have an unrelenting craving for peace and order.

This craving will never be fully satiated in this life of flesh.

I know this. Yet, I still strive and yearn for something eternal that always seems just beyond reach. So, then I find myself pacifying my persistent longing for peace for a counterfeit tranquility that may involve retail therapy, reading a non-edifying book, filling my schedule with non-essentials that prove to be avoiding the hard things on my to do lists.

This calms my cravings for “peace” for a moment or two, but then inevitably the fake calm and the pretend peace prove vaporous as it disappears and the internal cries of “needing a minute,” return with vengeance.

If I’m deeply honest, it’s not a minute that I need.

It’s not a long moment of silence that I need.

It’s not a day absent from household chores or parental and adult responsibilities that I need.

It’s not merely peace that my soul truly longs for.

It’s Jesus.

I need Him, Who gives Peace and gives it in abundance.

I need the One Who is Peace.

I don’t want a mockup version of the worlds peace. I want the peace of the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth.

I want the perfect peace that can never be found in my spouse, children, career, accomplishments, accolades, awards, fashion, worldly knowledge, financial security, a nice home, a comfortable life… these things are not inherently wrong, but it is not where or what the Believer’s peace, or lack-there-of, should be found or rooted in. It’s through Christ alone, through our gift of faith and repentance in Him, and the security of our sealed salvation through Christ’s atoning work at the Cross. This is where our ultimate peace should be knitted to, from now into eternity. The perfect peace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

I refuse to settle for imitations.

The Apostle Paul writes to the Roman Church, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” (Romans 5:1, ESV).

Being justified means we now have a right standing with God. We’ve done nothing to earn or guarantee this. It’s not from our own doing, but a gift of revelation from the Lord. My faith is from Him. And because He’s chosen to gift me with faith in His Son, Jesus, I am now at peace with God the Father. And because I am now at peace with God the Father, I now have an eternal peace about all things.

This eternal peace about all things is an objective peace, because I belong to the Lord. My emotions on any given day may not align with this objective and true peace from the Lord, but that doesn’t make it any less true. He gives us this peace that is faultless, pure, and perfect, because He chose to and it glorifies His name, not mine.

Jesus tells us in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

As a true Believer in Jesus Christ, peace is not something we have to strive for. Peace is not something we have to obtain by perfect work and a model sanctification journey. Peace is not something that is re-produced in our life when circumstances are savory and happy. Peace is not something we earn by any effort of our own doing. Jesus gave it to us. He left us this perfect peace through His Holy Spirit that indwells the heart of every Believer.

As I’m writing this, I have a deep conviction stirring in my heart. I get this wrong so much. I confuse God’s gift of Peace—His promise to never leave us or forsake us, essentially the gift of Himself is the only peace we will ever need—with the world’s version of peace that is a life free from trouble.

Our peace is not derived from a trouble-free life. Does that type of life even exist in this sin-filled world? Our peace is from Jesus, and in Jesus.

Jesus tells us in John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

“In me you may have peace…”

My current conviction surrounds defining this season as chaotic, rather than marinating my thoughts on the gift of this season—Divine prophecy being fulfilled as my magnificent Savior was born.

Isaiah prophesied of this, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” (Isaiah 9:6 ESV).

My Savior is the Prince of Peace. He is Perfect Peace.

Lord, I pray for each one reading this—Keep our hearts close to You. Remind us of the truth of Your Perfect Peace daily, as we celebrate the birth of Your Son whom You sent as Savior for all whom You called before the foundations of the earth were set.

I Trust my God, I Trust my God, I Trust my God

Ardently His,

Jess Dennis

Perfect Patience

Jesus Is Lord, Trusting God

“But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life,” (1 Timothy 1:16 ESV)

Do you ever hear someone confess how impatient they are? I’ve been the one on the confessing end surrounding a lack of patience many times. I remember years ago someone comically warned me not to pray for patience because something difficult was bound to happen in my life to test my patience or lack thereof. There became this unspoken fear of attaining patience in my life. I began to view patience as only for the pastors or extra sanctified believers around me. I didn’t feel set apart enough to enter the category of patient. Maybe you can relate. What the Lord has beautifully brought to my attention through studying His Word is that I should have been focusing on His patience, not the miniscule version of patience I could attain. My attention should have centered on His perfect patience and what that means.

Patience is defined by Oxford Languages as, “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.”

The patience of God is illustrated daily; with every breath we breathe. His patience overwhelms His Creation that is marred by sin. The fact that He’s gifted us with Salvation and then continuously lavishes His grace on us, is His patience.

He’s God—He’s eternal perfect wisdom—He is the only Omniscient One there is and will ever be—So He created His creation KNOWING that left to freewill, we WILL sin. And He’s so holy, He can’t abide with even a speck of sin… all of this points to His innate patience before He chose to create us. Within this perfect patience, He had already set a plan for Salvation for His people through the work of Jesus Christ at the cross in eternity past.

The entire plan of Salvation—Jesus being born of a virgin, being fully God, yet fully man, living a sinless and perfect life, revealing His deity through miraculous wonders and signs, being captured, tortured, and bearing the holy wrath of God for all of His children’s sin, taking our place in that well-deserved punishment, hung on a cross to die a physical death, was buried, to resurrect to life again three days later, having defeated death and the power of sin on the believer, and ascend back to heaven—The entire plan of Salvation is marked with God’s patience for His children. Not only does the entire plan of Salvation point to God’s patience, but through the life of Christ we have an example of patience that magnifies perfect patience as He willingly endured the cross as obedience to God the Father. We cannot atone for ourselves. We cannot keep ourselves from sinning. We cannot rise to perfection in any way that would garner an eternal life in Heaven next to our Perfect God. God knew all of this prior to Genesis 1:1. We must recognize the beautiful patience of our wonderful God. 

God’s patience does not negate the consequences of sin. It’s actually through our sin that we radically recognize the patience of God.

If we’re honest about our deeply embedded sin nature that derives from our corrupted desires, manifesting from our own free-will and in light of God’s boundless holiness—we should all be like Herod Agrippa in Acts 12. He did not give God the glory and attempted to possess the praises of the people. Because of this, he was struck down, breathed his last breath, and was eaten by worms. The fact that this hasn’t been the fate of all of us yet, is the patience of God.

We can recognize God’s patience regarding our sin all the way back in the beginning of Genesis. God knew the sin that was going to take place in the Garden of Eden. He could have struck Adam and Eve to death and cast them into an eternal doom right then. He could have wiped out all future remnants of the human race at The Fall in Genesis 3.

But He didn’t.

His patience endures.

His patience is evidently present and perfect, and infinite as He is infinite. Not only did He patiently allow Adam and Eve to continue to breath, but He cared for them so much that He expelled them from the Garden of Eden so they wouldn’t fall in any future temptation and fail from the expression of their own free-will, and then eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in a sinful state.

He is a patient God.

The fact that God has gifted us with sanctification journeys points to His loving patience toward us. He is so holy and calls us to be holy, but He doesn’t expect a holy perfection from us while in our physical bodies of flesh. So, He providentially allows us to grow in this holiness.

That alone shines so much light on His perfect patience.

If patience is a gift from the Holy Spirit and a mark and a fruit of the Holy Spirit, along with Love, Joy, Peace, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-control, we can rest in knowing that God is in all sense perfectly patient. He wouldn’t call us to bear something that He doesn’t emulate in an absolute boundless way. Now, we know we will never conduct ourselves in perfect patience this side of glory, but His grace makes up for all that we could never attain. His grace points back to His overwhelming patience with His children whom He’s called before the foundations of the world were created.

I love the instruction of the Apostle Paul written to the church at Colossae. He writes,

“Put to death what is earthly in you…Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him,” (Colossians 3:5,12-17 ESV).  

Paul is instructing and challenging and calling those who are repented believers to a holy lifestyle that is consistent with our new identities in Christ Jesus. He is reiterating that believers have been chosen by God and stand before Him as His beloved holy ones. Paul is instructing the believer to put on the virtues of Christ and patience is listed among these top tier virtues—this magnifies the attribute of God’s perfect patience. Though we can’t obtain His perfect patience, it is an attribute of God that is communicable to a degree to the believer. We are to take part in His patience as we grow in His grace and grow in His wisdom and grow in His likeness, we are to bear with others in patience.

What a gift from the Lord that He’s allowed space for the believer to take part in the attribute of His patience.

I encourage you to seek to become more patient as He is patient. I encourage you to welcome the sanctifying moments that challenge you to rise in patience all the while you rely on the strength of the God of Perfect Patience.

I Trust my God, I Trust my God, I Trust my God

Ardently His,

Jess

Be A Truth Teller

Jesus Is Lord, Trusting God

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved,” (Philippians 3:20-4:1 ESV).

In a world full of sinful delusions masked as “love,” be a Truth teller.

We are in a war for truth. As a redeemed believer and follower of Jesus Christ, we are commanded to speak the truth of His Holy Word and share the gospel—the literal Good News of Jesus SAVING people who fall short of the glory of God. Reality check—WE ALL fall short of His glory everyday of our lives, hence why we ALL need the Savior, Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:23)

My feelings can’t save me. My good deeds can’t save me. My “good person” status can’t save me. My mom can’t save me. The government can’t save me. My bank account can’t save me. My health can’t save me. My strong will can’t save me. My college education can’t save me. My husband can’t save me. My children can’t save me.

Jesus saves me.

In the Gospel of John, he records Jesus’ words, “… I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” (John 14:6 ESV).

Jesus is the way. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the life.

End of the story.

Jesus is truth. He is the standard of truth. He is the standard of goodness. He is the standard of righteousness. He is the standard of holiness. Any other “truth” or standard is rubbish, foolish, and fades.

In other words of Jesus, He tells His disciples a truth that is overwhelmingly unpopular to the world. “…If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” (Matthew 16:24 ESV).  

Deny himself. Ouch. We are living in a cowardly culture that has zero concept of what it means to deny fleshly appetites. One wakes up and feels a certain way—that then becomes their twisted version of truth and reality. It’s madness. It’s no less than the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Believer, what then should we do with all these delusions of reality that invoke such gross evil and attempts to smother the truth of Jesus and His Word?

We set like flint and follow after Jesus in every aspect of our lives. We take up our cross, daily. We armor ourselves with the Holy scriptures. We share the gospel. We do not grow weary of doing good. We persevere until the end, like so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ have done before us. We take up the torch of truth daily, shine it, and light others torches around us. We can’t sit down. We can’t slumber. We can’t silence.  

Like so many across our country, my heart is devasted over the senseless, evil, assassination of a brilliant, wise, TRUTH-telling, husband, father, and Brother-in-Christ, Charlie Kirk. He encouraged countless with the Word of God. He stood firm on Biblical principles. He boldly pointed others to the truth of Who Jesus is—Savior. He not only stood on Biblical principles but also stood for the United States Constitution and what our Founding Fathers built.

What a loss for our country.

But what rejoicing he is doing in Heaven at this very moment. He won.

He was taken down by the schemes of satan, but ultimately our sovereign and perfect God allowed it. Somehow, my God gets the glory, every time. Even when we can’t see it or do not understand it.

Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it,” (Matthew 16:25 ESV).

Are you willing to lose your life for the Truth of Jesus?

Martyrdom isn’t something our country faces daily. But what if it was? Is your following after Jesus whimsical and wavering? Or are the seeds of the Truths of Jesus and God’s Holy Word so richly planted in you, that without a doubt you would have His truth on your lips until your final breath, even if you’re threatened to stop speaking Jesus’ truth?

This is a wake-up call, Believer. I pray you seek God so intensely and have a holy conviction to be rooted in His Word that there is no second guessing your stance.

Believer, we must tell the truth of Jesus. Wherever the Lord has ordered you in this life—tell His truth. Whether it’s at your seemingly boring 8-5 job—tell His truth. Whether it’s a platform that garners the attention of thousands or millions—tell His truth. Whether it’s in your living room to the young hearts the Lord has entrusted to you during your time on earth—tell His truth.

What do we have to lose?

Our lives?

Not really.

In the words of the late John MacArthur, “All death can do to the believer is deliver him to Jesus.” Charlie Kirk has been reported to have spoken these same words. The beautiful irony.

As followers of Jesus, we should have this same boldness surrounding our thoughts of an earthly death. This boldness should stoke a fire so bright to LIVE for Christ and His glory.

Paul writes about this truth to the church at Philippi, “as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” (Philippians 1:20-21 ESV).

I challenge you, Believer, not to embody a mindset of flesh-fueled anger, but one of deep sorrow over the sin that is rampart around our nation and world. I pray it brings us to our knees. Do you realize that among these current scoffers of Jesus, there are some that are still yet to be called as Child of God? But, make no mistake, if they belong to Christ, He will get them. (John 10:14-16). What a beautiful thing that the Lord has graciously allowed us to be a part of… sharing the gospel of His Truth to help bring the lost to salvation and repentance.

I want to conclude with a beautiful exhortation written by Paul to the Church at Philippi that is still for the believer today,

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me, keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved,” (Philippians 3:12-4:1 ESV).

Be a Truth teller until the end.

I Trust my God, I Trust my God, I Trust my God

Ardently His,

Jess