Peace - Martin Cisneros

Peace Like A River

By Martin Cisneros

Peace like a river is only possible when you refuse to build any dams between yourself and Christ. I'm not talking about in a way where you're becoming "lost," but thoughts create bridges to reach certain conclusions and possibilities in life, they build dams to cut off the flow of things -- often things we're not wanting to cut the flow of.

6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:6-9 NKJV)

When you guard your mind with the Word of God, it is the fruit of the spirit known as "peace" that you're utilizing. God has peace that surpasses all understanding. It's not just peace that He brings that surpasses all understanding, but He has peace that surpasses all understanding because He fully believes that Jesus Christ is the ransom for all of Creation. Peace is a deliberate stand that you take, expecting that in your communion with Christ Jesus over the Bread and the Cup that He'll clothe you in His peace and joy.

Peace is something that you do, like patience, where praying for it is really pretty futile. The Word of God will strengthen your decisions for peace, patience, and self control, but you have to feed on it's rich treasures and act according to the profile of the prosperous believer that it paints for you within it's pages. Simply living like the New Testament is 100% true is what many people in the Word of Faith camp have gotten in trouble with other believers for. But either the New Testament is 100% true for every area of life, or we're left in the camp of the moral relativist that tries to decide which parts of the New Testament are true, which are fabrication, and which don't matter much any more.

A stand of faith and a stand of peace is a stand in the absolute truth of every line of the New Testament. Until you accept the New Testament as being strictly true not only in it's warnings and denouncements of ungodliness and coveteousness, but also in it's promises for an abundant life in every area of life that's fully submitted to Jesus Christ, then peace will continue to allude you.

Has God sent Jesus to take away the sin of the world through His example, His self-sacrifice, His Blood, His resurrection, and His High Priestly and Lordship ministries?

Have you embraced the Lordship of Jesus Christ and sought Jesus for the fullness of His Holy Spirit to flow to you, in you, and through you?

God's opinion of you has never changed and the work of Christ is complete. God is not double-minded and Jesus Christ isn't an absentee Advocate. When Christ seated you with Himself in heavenly places, He appointed you as His joint-heir and that's never changed.

Nothing has ever successfully nullified the work of the cross and the Holy Spirit is still on your side, absolutely adoring you. Christ's throne is secure and so is yours.

God's love is still poured out upon you continually, even if emotionally and mentally you've been elsewhere. The Blood of Christ and your new name doesn't change with your ever-changing emotions.

All of the Scriptures have to be fulfilled that reveal your life being hidden with Christ in God, and that reveal both His glory and your glory. Christ within you still fulfills all righteousness. The Holy Spirit is still edifying your body as His Temple.

The opinions of others do not corrupt your treasure in heaven. The offended hearts of others have never stripped you of your crown in Christ. God still sees every promise of His fulfilled in your life.

Ever since you embraced the Lordship of Jesus, God your Father has continued to see Jesus in you. Nothing has ever dulled His vision of Christ in you. God sees life, purity, and righteousness in you through Christ.

God sees your strength and that Christ is mighty in you, even when you think that you are at your weakest point. God believes He can still love you into a perfect manifestation of perfection, regardless of your biggest failure thus far. God sees your every need as met according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

God sees every yoke of bondage in this world as completely destroyed through the Christ within you. God is eagerly anticipating a hundred-fold harvest of the Word of Christ from your heart. God doesn't expect anything to come to harvest within you but the Word of Christ. God is a Christian because God has faith in what Christ has done.

We may freely look with loving expectancy for the salvation of all of Creation for as long as there is Power in the Blood of Jesus Christ, Life in the Body of Christ, Supremacy in the Spirit of Christ, Wisdom in the Heart of Christ, and Eager Longing in the heart of the Father for the salvation of all of Creation.

As others have said before me, "yes, repentance, faith, sanctification, holiness, discipleship, good works, praise and worship are obligatory upon all."

While it is true that no one is saved until they are saved, it is equally true that Christ is always lurking, prowling, plotting, and preparing. Take a look with me at a few verses of Scripture:

As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 1Corinthians 15:22

The Bible gives no allowance for doubting the security of the ultimate destiny of the human race. Just as we don't know how long it was between Adam's creation and Adam's transgression, we're not given a precise number of years or ages within which to expect the redemptive work of Christ to find it's completion in the last life somewhere, whether in this world or in some other.

1Corinthians 15 says that each will be redeemed in their own order. And we're assured that not all flesh is like every other piece of flesh, either in this life or in the resurrection from mortality and corruption. We're simply instructed that Christ died, was buried, and rose again according to the Scriptures, and to be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our labor in the Lord isn't in vain.

If our labor in the Lord isn't in vain, then surely His labor isn't in vain in a single life anywhere.

Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. Ezekiel 18:4

This is a pregnant promise of the Scriptures when you remember 1Corinthians 15:22 and Colossians 1:15-20. Christ has the preeminence in all things. He is the very Word through which all things were created according to John chapter 1.

He's made peace for all things that He has made in the heavens and in the earth through His Blood at the Cross, according to Colossians 1:15-20.

All souls are His. Christ didn't come to set aside the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, according to Matthew 5:17-18. And all souls are His from generation to generation.

He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:19

It says in 1Corinthians 15:25 that Christ must reign until all of His enemies are under His feet. Here in Micah 7:19 it says that He will tread our iniquities under foot. If He is the lamb of God Who has taken away the sin of the world according to John 1:29 and 1Peter 1:18-19, and we know from Ezekiel 18:4 that all souls are His, then all of our doubts are removed and all of our fears are cast out.

In Isaiah 43:25-26 we are told that He is doing these things for His own sake:

I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance, let us argue our case together; state your cause, that you may be proved right. Isaiah 43:25-26

We are told here to put Him in remembrance. We must put Him in remembrance because He told us to. We must put Him in remembrance that He has wiped out our transgressions according to 1Peter 2:24 and 2Corinthians 5:21. Put Him in remembrance that all souls are His, according to Ezekiel 18:4. Put Him in remembrance of Lamentations 3:22-23:

The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is His faithfulness! (Lamentations 3:22-23)

For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would grow faint before Me, and the breath of those whom I have made. Isaiah 57:16

The Lord is not a contender for the souls of men, because He won that victory on the Cross. He would not always be angry, because according to 1Corinthians 13, His love never fails.

The Lord doesn't want for us to be faint before Him. He wants for us to know that He will not contend forever.

It is a matter of Covenant record in several places throughout the Scriptures that:

He will not always strive with us, nor will he keep His anger forever. (Psalm 103:9)

And if it's that much of a matter of Covenant record, then what else are we to conclude but that Jesus shed His Blood in the behalf of it?

He doesn't want us to be afflicted, storm-tossed, and not comforted, according to Isaiah 54, but He wants us speaking the truth in love, and growing up in all respects into Christ, no longer walking as the Gentiles, but walking in the new self according to Ephesians 4:15-24.

The new self knows in it's deepest parts that He will not contend forever, because all souls are His, according to Ezekiel 18:4, and if He eternally grieves the souls He's made, then who is there to cheer Him but those He's grieved?!

In Him we have redemption through His Blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace. Ephesians 1:7

According to the riches of His grace, we have redemption through His Blood. Colossians 1:20 says He's made peace through the Blood of His cross for all things in the heavens and in the earth that lacked it. It's as if His Blood were the raw building blocks of redemption. It's more than some sort of psychic phenomenon that His Blood is either singing or judiciously declaring peace and forgiveness on some mystical plane we're unable to listen in on.

Though something of that nature may possibly be involved, at the same time there's another sense in which the coagulating part of the Blood of Christ is holding all of creation together so that it can't continue to hemorrhage in the trauma of the previous eons. All of creation is destined to know soundness through the cleansing transfusion of the Son of God.

The book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ says that the only path to overcoming is through, "the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony." (Revelation 12:11) As we focus on the propitiation for our sins and for the sins of the whole world (1John 2:2), we'll understand something of the riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19) through which justification through His Blood (Romans 5:9) is genuinely our Good News to share with the whole world (Matthew 28:18-20).

Salvation isn't a prayer, magical creed, or "holier than thou" living. Salvation is a Person. Salvation is Jesus Christ. Salvation is that special miracle that happens when you have an encounter with the risen Jesus Christ and you can't help but surrender everything to Him because for the first time in your life you know who He is.

If His Spirit has touched you recently in some unexplainable way, either through the writings of this website or in some other way, and if you're just seeking the right words of personal devotion and surrender to the Son of God, then perhaps this prayer is for you:

My Father and my God, I believe in my heart that You've raised Jesus from the dead, that His Blood has removed all of my sins, and that Jesus is Lord over all of creation. I submit my life to Jesus' Lordship and ask to be filled with Your Holy Spirit. I thank You for touching my life, making salvation real to me and inside of me. From now on, I expect Your guidance because I look to You. I thank You for everything. Amen!

Someone asked a question a while back, that I want to address for a few minutes, just in case someone else has been wondering about the same thing. They asked "How do you comment on Hell when the subject comes up with a small group of believers and they are talking about hell fire and damnation for the wicked, just in a general conversation?" They added additionally, "Do you keep quiet? Or if you do say something, what would be your opening comment(s)? That you disagree? Or is that too hard a statement. Or do you ask questions in a provocative manner to make them think or to turn the tables on the subject?"

I tend to focus people on the power of the finished work of the Cross and the reality of Jesus' High Priestly ministry in seeking/saving the lost, Who also hears their confession of faith and submission to His Lordship. I'll focus people on the promise of the Holy Spirit to convict of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

The Holy Spirit was sent to empower the lives of believers for all things that pertain to life and Godliness. The Holy Spirit was also sent to empower the lives of the lost to believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and to empower them to renounce their ungodliness, and to take upon them the yoke of Christ which is easy and light. The Holy Spirit empowers believers to reach the lost. The Holy Spirit empowers the wicked to turn a listening ear towards the rebuke of the righteous.

The Blood of Jesus was shed to stand as a fountain of cleansing for all of mankind. Jesus is Lord and Jesus is faithful to draw sinners to the throne of grace so that fully kneeled before Him, they would then become heirs of the gift of holiness, righteousness, gladness, purity, peace, provision, and wholeness.

Jesus is faithful all of the days of our lives to reveal truth, repentance, and transformation through each of us who believe to this lost, sinful, reprobate world.

God has made a provision through Christ that is sufficient to reclaim, remould, and restore a destroyed world through Christ. Everyone who believes is cleansed and restored from everything that they couldn't do anything about on their own.

I focus on these things and if my "Universalism" (for want of a better word) is discovered and people want to major on it and try to act as if it's in the same classes as divorce, murder, genocide, profanity, gossip, lying, and theft, then I'll simply tell them that I believe that salvation is only through Jesus Christ, repentance, grace, faith, and obedience to Him. I'll politely inform them that I believe in the finished work of the Cross and that I will not dispute with them in matters of Bible prophecy. I'll press upon them that it's sufficient for them to know that I believe in the Great Commission, salvation through Christ and His Blood alone, and in the needs for discipleship, holy living, and good works and that if these don't suffice as a basis for fellowshipping with me, then it is they who have forsaken the fellowship with fellow believers that we're exhorted in Scripture to not neglect, and that they need to repent of judging their brother in an unjust manner, not keeping Christ's commandment of love, and it is they who are tempting the Lord, falling from grace, and in danger of losing their Candle from it's place.

I usually never have to go quite so far, because most believers will press me about the basics a time or two, and when they find that I have a ready answer, am living right, and am zealous for the Lord, purity, and good works, they usually have an unspoken agreement with me to agree to disagree and to pray, and not press me about end times matters any more.

Sincere believers will just want to know that you love the Lord with all your heart, are committed to the Scriptures, are living right, are leading others to the Lord, and are being an example of how the household of God should conduct themselves, even if they don't understand the Scriptural basis for all of your beliefs.

God trusts Jesus to bring you across the finished line. God believes in the Blood of Christ, that Jesus was raised from the dead, that Jesus sits at His right hand, and that all of Jesus's enemies will be made His footstool. Jesus is the Head and you're the Body of Christ. If Jesus's enemies are being made His footstool, guess where the feet are! God believes that Jesus is the Lord of your life, that His Blood has taken away your sin, and that His Word and Holy Spirit are at work in your heart. God sees Jesus in you. God sees Jesus Present in you. God sees Jesus active in you.

God sees His New Creation within you. God sees His Word growing in you. God sees more courage in you than you think that you have, because He sees Jesus inside of you. God still believes in all that Jesus is doing inside of you. God sees you perfected in Christ and at rest in His completed work. God doesn't doubt for a minute in your ability to hear His Voice. God loves you. He sees the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness within you. An angel is very reverently polishing your scepter right now.

God loves you as if you were the only one that Jesus had ever had to die for. God loves you as if you were His only child in all of existence. God loves you as if there were no Jesus. Don't ever think in any of your weaker moments that God, your Father, only "puts up with you" because of Jesus. God loves you as if it were only you and Him in the entire universe or multiverse.

I hope that you realize that in saying this that I'm not dismissing redemption, it's process, it's history, and it's outcome. Neither am I in any way ever claiming that there's ever been or ever would be a Way to the Father except through Jesus. I'm just saying, as the prophet of God said so long ago to his servant, "there's [a lot] more with you than against you!" There's more at work in your favor than you can possibly imagine.

God loves and adores you. He's your Father and He's never going to let go. He's not only never going to let go of you, but He's never going to let go of your loved ones; of your situation and of theirs. God is intimately aware of each of your bills. If you're ill, God's intimately aware of each of your symptoms. God's going to pay the bills and heal your body. Don't worry about it any longer. Any of it. He loves you and through Christ you've found a ransom for your life…God's aware of every strained relationship and Christ's Blood is Bleeding on the whole situation. Trust Him to make all things new. Trust Him to wipe away your every tear. Don't be afraid.

6be humbled, then, under the powerful hand of God, that you He may exalt in good time,
7all your care having cast upon Him, because He careth for you. (1Peter 5:6-7 YLT)

Whenever I find myself starting to sink into the:

"Nobody cares;
nobody's there for me;
nobody understands;
the ones that say they care and that they're there for me usually have their own reasons for why that's not really true or is only true up to a point or until I really need them;
yada, yada, yada, yada,"

then I know that my thanksgiving is running pretty low, that I'm listening to the lies of the devil, that I've lacked diligence in militantly casting all of my cares upon Him, and that I'm needing some serious Word, Bread, and Cup time.

When your cares are really cast upon Him -- which is a hard day's work until you've thoroughly retrained your spirit, your mind, and your mouth to keep all of those cares cast upon Him and to violently refuse to bare them -- but when they're really cast upon Him, then loneliness is surprisingly absent, from a guy's perspective there are no unmet "needs" whether you're married or not, you're not hungry all of the time, and you reclaim all of that energy that you forfeit when you've [by default through a lack of diligence] decided to carry every care that rightfully belongs cast upon the Lord. When your cares aren't watchfully being kept on the Lord instead of on your own shoulders, then your preoccupation with your own thoughts and your cares creates being hungry all day long, being emotionally and sexually needy all day long, fretting over never having enough, and you're preoccupied by either the lack of depth in your relationships or the lack of relationships in your life.

When you're first starting to diligently keep every care cast upon Him, that's an honest hard day's work at first. But you really reclaim yourself and your relationship with God in a way that you won't any other way. You're going to spend the time and you're either going to be reclaiming your energies by not making them bare a multitude of burdens or you're going to continually be forfeiting your own soul moment by moment. You've just got to get mean about keeping every care cast upon Him. Under the New Covenant, in some ways, 1Peter 5:6-7 is the greatest commandment. Because think about it: if you're preoccupied with yourself, your emotions, what's not going on in your life, or what's not happening quickly enough for you in your life, etc., then do you really have the energy and the inspiration to love God with everything that you've got and to love your neighbor as much as Jesus has loved them? Under the New Covenant, we're not obligated to love one another as we love ourselves. Jesus told us to love as He loved us. That's higher, deeper, richer, and more powerful and takes you out of the realm of fretting over whether you're loving yourself enough which is total nonsense and not the perspective, priority, and commission of the New Testament.

Every care has got to be kept cast upon Him if you're even going to be able to think straight with all of the distractions that we're all facing day and night. There is no soundness of mind without keeping every care cast upon Him. Jesus lived with every care of His cast upon the Father, otherwise His "sermon on the mount" would have gotten Him busted by the devil in an area of hypocrisy. No thoughts for tomorrow, beyond what you can honestly do something about today/tonight. If you know that you're scheduled for work, then obviously you need clean clothes and anything else that's obvious to you that you'd need to keep that commitment. But no more warfare in your life in areas where there are no spoils, ok? If there's nothing to be gained, then don't let anyone pull you into the argument. Every care has to be cast upon Him, including all of the ones about personal reputation. Keep every other care cast upon Him. Nothing else matters but obedience to that. When every burden is genuinely off of your shoulders, then and then alone resume with the rest of your life. Loving God is easier when you're carefree. Fasting and praying for enemies as well as for Christians that don't understand you or that you don't understand becomes easier when you're not at the point of nearly slapping someone.

Every care. You're not entitled to a single one of them and then to claim that you're obeying your heavenly Father. This is where the rubber meets the road and this is something that I've had to get really mean with myself about over the last year and a half. I usually believe God for my words for the new year usually around October/November and do anything that I feel lead of the Lord to do where fasting, worshipping, and thanking God is concerned until I've got the assurance that in the coming year that it won't be me that speaks but the Spirit of my heavenly Father speaking through me. As many of you might remember, June/July of 2007 the Lord told me to do something else and I had to start believing God RIGHT THEN for my words for the following 3 years from then. I posted a prayer request along those lines, per the leading of the Lord, and this was the primary subject He started pouncing on me about within hours of having posted that prayer request.

Those of you that have even any remote fleeting wish that you'd experience more of the leading of the Lord to where you genuinely knew that it was Him, this is one of the most important "keys of the kingdom" where that's concerned. Every care has to be cast upon Him and firmly held there with your faith. Again, this doesn't mean do nothing practical about upcoming plans and agreements that you have with others that at certain times and on certain days you'll be somewhere. I'm not talking about that at all. You do all you can along those lines without worry, fear, and anxiety and give God every single worry, anxiety; every ounce of fretting; every thought of "what am I going to do?" and if you've publicly embraced and confessed His Lordship over your life (Romans 10:9-13) then relax and realize that the Greater One is on the inside of you and you're going to have the answers that you need for those situations that you're facing as long as it's His care throughout and not yours.

Ever cried out to God in the midst of tragedy while you were a basketcase about all that was going on, and felt like you were talking to the ceiling and not much else? Not a pleasant place to be in, right? You were two yards/meters buried under your cares and not inhabiting the land of the living where what the Holy Spirit would have told you would register on your thick head/ears/heart. It's not Heaven or Hell as so many have preached. It's God or baring all of those burdens yourself and unwittingly/unknowingly trying to be your own God in doing so. If you're sick and tired of being sick and tired in any area of your life, then all of those cares have got to go. They're a major roadblock to the clarity of conscience and mind to know what to do. Buddhists and Hindus have gotten it wrong about inheriting the level they want by trying to strip themselves of desires and of self. That's not how you attain anything. It's not by deadening yourself, but by presenting yourself to God as alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness, according to Romans 6. You've got to give it all to Him, relax, and thank Him superexcessively that no matter what it is, He'll take care of it.

He cares for you and wants to exalt you over every situation you face in life, but 1Peter 5:6-7 gives the key. Father God must carry your cross daily! Not you. Him. Turn loose of it and give it all to Him right now. Don't take any more excuses from your emotions or from anything else in your life. None of 'em are reasons for having a single care in the world. Let Father God carry your cross daily and you just follow Him through Jesus Christ. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. In 1Peter 5 the proud are those that are carrying the cares of their life on their own shoulders. Ever noticed His resistance while you're doing that? It's not in your head. 1Peter 5 promises it. 1Peter 5 calls the humble those that give it all to Him and make Him the General Manager of their universe.