divine peace – ThrivingBranch

What the Prince of Peace Means for You

January 30, 2022January 10, 2022Leave a Comment

Of the many titles given to Jesus, none are perhaps quite as striking as “the Prince of Peace.” When considering the names and titles which God describes Himself to us as, we should remember that God doesn’t need to name himself for His benefit. Whenever God gives himself a name, he does it for our benefit.

So when the God-breathed, holy Spirit inspired scriptures refers to Jesus as the Prince of Peace, what does that mean? That’s a challenging question to answer, but it’s vital to understand to appreciate the gift of divine peace that Jesus gives to us.

Change Your Lenses, Change Your Life (part 3)

August 16, 2020August 16, 2020Leave a Comment

Welcome back to part three of our discussion about perceptions; where we are exploring how the lenses that we see ourselves and the world around us by, can have a powerful and dramatic effect on our entire life. And not surprisingly, the scriptures have quite a bit to teach us about our lenses.

Last week, we paused after seeing how the Israelites failed to enter the Promise Land, by allowing their circumstances and their skewed lenses speak louder to them than the multiple promises of God that they had already been given. This is a scenario that plays out today as well, in the lives of a great number of believers, and it keeps people wandering in the “spiritual wilderness”, continually lost, weak and defeated, when in fact they have countless unclaimed promises of victory right in-front of them.

I also mentioned last week, at the end of our study right before we paused, that even if that picture resembles you today, that there was no need to despair, because there is a way out of the wilderness, thee is an answer, and we will find out what that answer is today in this study. So join me now, as we continue our discussion about changing our lenses, and changing our life.

Pictures of Jesus in the Beatitudes (part 6)

January 19, 2020September 17, 2019Leave a Comment

Welcome again to part 6 of our study on seeing pictures of Jesus – different aspects of Him and His finished work for us – in the Beatitudes.

Now we are nearing the end, and we have been purposefully taking this slowly and with great care, because specifically the Beatitudes are very often mis-used as a legalistic barrier, a veil that keeps us from seeing or fully-embracing our new identity in Christ Jesus; and He never intended the Beatitudes (or any of His teaching) to be used in that fashion. That’s part of what the Pharisees were doing with the Old Covenant Law, and Jesus always corrected them strongly for it.

So today we continue looking at pictures of Jesus in the Beatitudes, as we pick-up where we last left off in part 5.