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PROGRAM D-7777
If you could measure how peaceful you are on a scale of one to ten, with ten being blissfully, totally peaceful, what kind of grade would you give yourself? No doubt that number would fluctuate with what’s happening in your life at any given time—right? That’s the way it usually works with me, but here’s the thing: As Christ-followers Jesus has given us a peace that the world does not offer—it’s his gift to us. It’s the “peace that transcends all understanding”, as Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians, and he said that peace will guard your heart and your mind.
If you’re born from above through faith in Jesus Christ, you are entitled to—you have access to—this transcendent peace that will guard your heart and your mind. But how do we keep that peace on a consistent basis? That’s our challenge, and that’s why we’ve chosen Unshakable Peace as the theme for our upcoming Weekend Getaway, April 21 – 23. Keeping the peace, so to speak, is dependent in large part on where we keep our mind focused. You know, one of the most important concepts we can grasp in our Christian life is that we are what we think. I find that any time I’m not at peace, any time I’m troubled or fearful, it’s because I have allowed my thoughts to go where they should not go.
The Bible teaches us to bring our thoughts into captivity and make them obedient to Christ. That just means you think about what you’re thinking about and you train yourself to bring those wrong thoughts into captivity. Now, that’s easier to say than it is to do—believe me, I know that. It requires a training process, and we are admonished in Paul’s letters to Timothy to train ourselves to be godly and to train for righteousness. So, we must do our part to keep our thoughts from destroying our peace.
This is such an important principle that we’re going to focus on it for our entire weekend getaway. What is a weekend getaway, you ask? Well, it’s just that—a weekend for women to get away from their normal routines and have time to refresh and refurbish their souls. One of the workshops is going to focus on finding peace right in the midst of our emotional storms. Whether its depression or anxiety or worry—whatever you call it—these emotional storms steal our peace. Susy Best will cover basic ways you can find true peace even in these tough emotional times.
I really hope to see you at this weekend getaway; I think I can promise you that you’ll never regret taking this time away from your everyday life to refresh your soul.