Philippians 4:7 "...the Peace of God, which passeth all understanding..." The peace that comes from Christ being revealed in the heart never goes away. Though this flesh we are in remains what it always was and always will be: our adversary, yet, there's a calmness of the awakened soul that never goes away. Peace may fade when our eyes are on the world, but He never leaves you. Our lives and the things of this world are the storm of sin that swirls around the soul constantly, sometimes with great force, but Jesus is like the eye of that storm, always there, and the closer we come to Him, the calmer we get. Jesus is the calm before the storm and the calm within the storm, the sinless center for His children. When the Spirit wakes us up to how sinful we are is when the storm begins, but then comes the Calm, Christ Jesus Who saved us, our Robe of Righteousness, "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the Garments of Salvation, He hath covered me with the Robe of Righteousness." (Isaiah 61:10) There's a feeling of calm in the soul that the words of men can't explain, a feeling of well-being and though it may fade, it never leaves once planted. No one can take it from you, try as they may. It's miraculous what the Word of God in the heart does to a sinner saved by Grace, "He maketh the storm a calm..." (Psalm 107:29)

Psalm 58:3 "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." Some say, "You know, I am not a thief!" But, oh, yes you are! We all are. You have robbed God of His glory from the time you came forth from the womb because you came forth speaking lies. We all have. But, if you are the LORD's, He bought you with His precious blood, with His obedient suffering unto death, and He will cause you to see that. He will cause you to see that just going your own way is enough for Him to send you to hell but, "...He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him." (Isaiah 53:5) Now, this peace spoken of is not some subjective peace where people run around trying to feel at peace with God. No, the chastisement is what was required by God that would secure a legal peace by a legal justice before Him. What it would take for God to be just and declare us righteous before Him, what it would take for the price owed for sin to be paid: "And, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in Heaven." (Colossians 1:20) In Heaven is God the Father and on earth are His elect in the flesh. We were reconciled to God by Christ, by the blood of His cross, which means His death. The chastisement that the children of God deserve, fell upon Him. And, notice: "...with His stripes we are healed." By Christ's obedient suffering unto death we were healed! If someone asked me when I was saved, do you know what I would tell them? I would say, "Some 2,000 years ago, when it pleased God to take my sin and put it to the account of the Savior and take His Righteousness and impute it to this poor sinner's account." I was not even there, I was not even born yet. That shows that Salvation is completely outside of myself, in Christ alone. Outside of anything I do, or did, or didn't do. Outside of anything I think, outside of anything I feel or anything I don't feel. But in time I was brought by His Spirit to see that I was a sinner for whom He died, to see the imputation of Christ's earned Righteousness applied to my account by the Father at the moment of Christ's death on the cross at Calvary. He is my Peace and Rest. We do not have to deal with a God that has to be satisfied again every day by what we do or don't do, it was finished at the cross and in Christ we rest!

Isaiah 42:1 "Behold My Servant, Whom I uphold; Mine Elect, in Whom My soul delighteth..." Who is this Servant of God in Whom God's soul delights? Of course, it's His Son, the LORD Jesus Christ, His Elect. What is it to be assured of being one of the chosen of God? It is to know Christ, God's Elect. When God by His Holy Spirit says to one of His own, "Behold My Servant," He provides the ears to hear Him as well as the eyes to see Him, Christ His Servant Who carried out the work of salvation on this earth, for His elect sinners. Only His redeemed will truly know Him at some point in their life. If you know Christ Jesus the LORD, God's Elect, you know you are one of His. You will know Him as the Truth of Scripture. The fact that you know Him as He is set forth in Scripture, is the evidence that you are His. Assurance, for the awakened sinner, IS CHRIST. We are awakened to the fact that He accomplished ALL that was necessary for us to live when He died on the cross. We are awakened to the fact that we did nothing to merit salvation, on the contrary, we earned condemnation before we were even born into this world, by our sin nature inherited from Adam, "For all have sinned..." (Romans 3:23) Each of us would have taken that fruit and ate, each of us would have preferred to be a 'god' by eating it, each of us would have believed God was the liar instead of Satan, " And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die." (Genesis 3:4) So, in case you're trying to give yourself credit by thinking you would have done differently, you're just calling God a liar, again. When the Spirit awakens you, you'll know that you are the liar and God is the Truth. You'll know that He is Grace and He is Mercy. You'll know that even though no one deserved it, yet, it was His good pleasure to save a remnant, out of the Goodness of His Heart: Christ Jesus. So therein we know our Assurance: He is our Mercy and our Grace, He is God's Elect, He is Jesus Christ our LORD!

1 Peter 1:19 "But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:" The griefs and sorrows of Christ were allotted to Him by the Father. He did not suffer because of anything inherent in Him, but in the place of His chosen ones. He carried the grief and sorrow of sin all the way to the cross where He paid the ultimate price for our sin, His precious blood shed unto death. You know, there are some that are trying to say that He had to become exactly what we are. They say that when the Scripture says that He became sin they actually believe and say that He became sinful. No, that is not the case! There is NO way that He could have been made a sinner and still be the PERFECT, SPOTLESS LAMB. God could NOT have accepted Him with sin in Him. His blood would have no longer been an acceptable Sacrifice. No, He bore our sin debt in our place as our Substitute. He paid what we owed with His precious blood shed unto death. Precious because He was spotless, without sin/blemish, perfect, righteous. He did not take on our depravity. He took on the wrath of His Father and died for His children. It was real pain, no man could bear the flogging that He did in His flesh. I don't believe it as men portray in some of these movies where you see Him crying out in agony. I believe what the Scriptures say, "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." (Isaiah 53:7) When our LORD Jesus Christ did speak, it was always to the glory of His Father and the good of those drawn to Him. And yet that doesn't in any way diminish the pain He endured as the sin-Bearer. Our LORD was not exempt from suffering, quite the opposite. You read in Scripture that Christ groaned in His Spirit. To me that shows, again, His humanness and I am thankful because many times have I groaned in my spirit and He has turned my eyes to see Him and to know that anything I go through can't compare to what my LORD endured for my sin. And I deserve justly what comes to me, but He did not. He was wronged and abused and when it says that He was oppressed, that word literally means 'injuriously treated.' He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself. Yet, in all that, He opened not His mouth. That should shut our mouths in awe and bring us to our knees at His feet! ALL glory and honor to the Lamb slain! "...Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." (Revelation 5:12)

Zephaniah 1:7 "...the day of the LORD is at hand: for the LORD hath prepared a Sacrifice..." When the LORD's children speak of Salvation, by the Power of the Holy Spirit, they speak only of Christ Jesus the LORD. Salvation is synonymous with Jesus, the Sacrifice, Preparer of ALL things required to save His sinners, Accomplisher of ALL necessary to justify them. Anything prepared, worked by mere men, becomes an idol, an ungodly work. The earthly temple building in Jerusalem was a picture, a type of Christ to come, housing the written Scripture, so His earthly body housed the living, breathing, Word of God, Who would save His world with the beating heart prepared to shed His Righteous blood unto death on the cross, in His substitutional, sacrificial act of perfect obedience and love. He is the Kingdom of God incarnate, the Miracle prepared to bless His chosen ones, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." (Matthew 25:34) He is our Continuing City, prepared for us to inhabit in eternity, "...He hath prepared for them a City," (Hebrews 11:16) "For here have we no continuing city, but we seek One to come." (Hebrews 13:14) He is the ONE HEART, prepared and given, "Thou wilt prepare their Heart," (Psalm 10:17) "And I will give them one Heart." (Ezekiel 11:19) He is our Kingdom, our Continuing City, our Heart, Christ Jesus our LORD!

Jeremiah 29:13 "And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your Heart." Christ must seek us first, and He will, "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?" (Luke 15:4) He has His eye on us always, it's impossible that He lose any that are His, "...of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." (John 6:39) On our own, we would never seek the Truth because it exalts Him alone, not us. So then, what does it mean? How can a vile, depraved sinner with a lifeless heart seek the LORD? Well, it's only possible for those chosen sinners that have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, only then can they search the Scriptures and find Christ, the Truth, "And I will give them one Heart, and I will put a new Spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an Heart of flesh," (Ezekiel 11:19) "...when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all Truth." (John 16:13) This new Heart will seek and see Christ in all Scripture. This new Heart will see Christ in the Old Testament promises and pictures and types, and see Christ in the New Testament fulfillment by His finished work at the cross, in the death and resurrection of our Sinless Substitute. Christ said, "...when ye shall search for Me with all your Heart," the "when," is that appointed time that the Holy Spirit wakes the sinner, His Heart of flesh becomes our Heart of flesh. Only then will we seek and hunger after Christ Jesus the WORD, "...It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word of God." (Luke 4:4) With the Heart of Christ, by His Holy Spirit, we will seek and find and live by every Word of God by Christ Jesus our LORD!

Galatians 5:1 "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." We hear a lot of people today talking about their offerings and their tithes, things they bring to a place of so-called worship. These are merely payments for something they want. The reason there is so much emphasis on it is because it is rooted in man's depravity and unbelief, which still holds to the notion that we have to DO something FOR God. This is the 'yoke of bondage' spoken of here. To stand fast in Liberty is to stand fast in Christ and His finished work. The Gift from God, given freely to His elect, setting them free from this bondage of trying to pay their sin debt with dung, and cover up their sinful flesh with filthy rags. Our nature is that of the Pharisees, "But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over Judgment and the Love of God..." (Luke 11:42) They thought themselves the judges of their fate, all the while passing over Christ, the True Judge, the Love of God. Instead of dropping at His feet in gratitude and looking to Him for all they could ever want or need, they desired to kill Him for raining on their self-righteous parade. This goes deep into the roots of idolatry. People in other countries outwardly offer up sacrifices and offerings with the hope that somehow it will pacify that god and give them a better harvest, or more children, or wealth, or health, or whatever they are looking for. The same goes on here, among self-proclaimed 'christians,' it just may be a little bit more polished, a little more hidden, but fundamentally it is still the same idolatry. They believe themselves to be worth something. They think they can buy Heaven with their own treasure and ignore Christ the True Treasure, "Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but Righteousness delivereth from death." (Proverbs 10:2) Christ IS the Righteousness that delivers from death; our Liberty, our Treasure from God!

Acts 16:31 "Believe on the LORD Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," Salvation is like an umbrella under which are a large range of elements that makeup the Doctrine of Grace, which is Christ: "Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by Grace ye are saved;)" (Ephesians 2:5) Election fits under this umbrella. Reconciliation. Redemption. Regeneration. Justification. Glorification. Sanctification. These are all under the umbrella of salvation by Grace. "But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, Who of God is made unto us Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption:" (1 Corinthians 1:30) "Being justified freely by His Grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:" (Romans 3:24) The elect shall be saved, as God decreed in eternity, but, you see, there had to be an outworking of that salvation. So, as far as the time and place when we were declared just and holy before God, the time and place when that legal condemnation which we were born under from Adam was removed, it was there at the cross of Christ at Calvary, at the moment of Christ's death. That is what the Scriptures teach. Because of His obedient shedding of His precious blood unto death, even death on the cross, those for whom Christ died, are saved. Period. "...we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son," (Romans 5:10) So, you may say, "Don't we have to believe first in Christ to be saved?" No, dear friends, belief is not a condition of salvation! Christ fulfilled ALL the conditions, paid ALL the debt accrued. No, belief on Christ is given by the Holy Spirit, in time, as an evidence of salvation: "...and as many as were ordained to Eternal Life believed." (Acts 13:48) As many as God gave to Christ, would believe on Christ, not the other way around. When God causes one of His own to realize their lost estate, and to believe on His Son, and submit to Him as the Only Hope, as the Only Righteousness, then that belief makes it clear that they were chosen in Christ before time began and saved by His finished work, in time, on this earth, at the cross, for God's Glory: "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." (John 17:4)

Deuteronomy 10:17 "For the LORD your God is God of gods, and LORD of lords..." What makes the LORD our God, the 'God of gods' and 'LORD of lords'? Our God is set apart unto Himself by His intrinsic Holiness. Holiness is within Him, the hub of His being. He is without beginning and without end, therefore He has always been and always will be. He is Sovereign in all things, determining all that occurs. He is Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent. God is Omnipotent, which means that He is all Powerful, "Great is our LORD, and of great power," (Psalm 147:5). "God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God." (Psalm 62:11) All power belongs to God, if we blink an eye or set off a nuclear explosion, the power is from Him alone and for His purposes alone. God is Omniscient, He knows all, His knowledge has no boundaries, "Great is our LORD...His understanding is infinite." (Psalm 147:5) He has ordained everything that has ever happened, and everything that ever will happen, that's how He knows all things. God is Omnipresent, which means His Presence is everywhere at once, as David declares, "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy Presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there." (Psalm 139:7-8) God is Perfect; perfect in power, perfect in presence, perfect in knowledge. His holy Perfection is the hub for all His attributes; Love, Righteousness, Justice, Truth, Mercy, and Grace. The love of mere men is fickle and self-serving, even in the best of circumstances, the opposite of the Holy Love of the True God as seen in His Son, our LORD Jesus Christ, by His Spirit. "Out of Zion, the Perfection of Beauty, God hath shined." (Psalm 50:2) Christ Jesus is the Perfection of Beauty, the Beauty of Holiness incarnate, worship Him! "...Worship the LORD in the Beauty of Holiness." (1 Chronicles 16:29)

Job 34:29 "When He giveth Quietness, who then can make trouble?" Christ is our Peace, our Quietness. When enemies come after a true child of God, there will be Peace drawn from the Word written in our heart by the Hand of God. You can be sure of Him, the Man Who earned our rest, the Peace and Quietness of Israel, typified by David's son Solomon, "Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon [man of peace], and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days." (1 Chronicles 22:9) Solomon was a type of Christ Jesus to come, a Son of David, and THE Son of God, "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given:...and His name shall be called...The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end..." (Isaiah 9:6-7) Solomon's peace was only temporary but Christ's peace is for ever, "Then Judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and Righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of Righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of Righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." (Isaiah 32:16-17) His children are His "fruitful field" and His work bought peace between us and God, the battle won at His cross, "O sing unto the LORD a new song; for He hath done marvelous things: His Right Hand, and His Holy Arm [Christ], Hath gotten Him the victory." (Psalm 98:1) The Holy Spirit of Christ writes these " marvelous things " upon our hearts as David tells us, "All this, said David, the LORD made me understand in writing by His Hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern. And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee..." (1 Chronicles 28:19-20) Victory, Peace, Quietness, Assurance, Christ ALONE!

Luke 8:25 "Where is your Faith?" Without the Spirit, people talk about a 'faith' that they believe they are responsible for manufacturing. It's an intangible feeling or state of mind they put themselves in, especially when dealing with the cares of the world. But that kind of 'faith' is the opposite of True Faith, which is Christ! The Faith that God gives, by His Spirit, is His Son in the flesh. He has substance, His flesh, yet He's God, Who is Spirit. He's not some intangible idea or mystical vapor. He's the evidence of the "unseen" God, "Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) Our Faith came to this earth in a body of flesh and blood, was tempted but NEVER sinned, "...in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15) Jesus was perfect in all He did, living and dying for His children in perfect obedience to the Father. He bare our sins on the cross, shedding His blood unto death, earning the righteousness required to pay the price of our sin with His innocent blood, and to raise us all from the dead, in Himself. We are the recipients of Faith, He is the Gift of God to those chosen before time began, "For by Grace are ye saved through Faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the Gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8) Our Faith is Christ and Him crucified, the Grace of God in the flesh, Who was " given " to us and for us, and now sits in glory because the work is done, "...thy Faith hath made thee whole." (Mark 10:52)

Daniel 7:9 "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, Whose garment was white as snow..." Some preach that the sinful flesh of men is made " white as snow " while we're here in this wilderness, getting better and better by sinning less and less, but any who are truly the LORD's know that's not true. Our flesh will never 'get better,' and although it doesn't get worse, it seems that way to the awakened sinner because we're made to see the God-Man Who made His " garment " " white as snow " by perfect obedience unto death. "...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow..." (Isaiah 1:18). Christ is the Way our sins are changed from blood-shed red, the color of death, to pristine white, the color of Light and Life. His righteous flesh is the flesh God sees while we are here on this earth; we don't 'patch up' our sinful skin with our own works and some of His: "No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment..." (Matthew 9:16). We mourn over our sin but rejoice in Him. We don't see His work on the cross as a path to sin freely. Our mouths are shut to our own progress, because there is none. We pray for Him to keep us from the evil of sin and to keep us looking to Him at all times: "...the Ancient of Days {the God-Man} Whose garment was white as snow..."