1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian PEACE | Page 6

mercy seat to receive personally the mercy of Christ. If this is the case then Christ invites you to do that. When you come, bear in mind that you do not come in your own merit, or hoping that your good works or nice character will impress God. You come acknowledging your own sinfulness and your request is simply for forgiveness. It is at this point that Christ takes from you the weight and burden of sin and gives to you the “peace that passes all understanding”. I hope that if you haven’t made the journey that today would be a good day for you to do that. Prayer Thought: Won’t you as you pray today, reflect for some time on the picture that has been painted above and give thanks to God for the gift of Christ and the atoning power of His shed blood on our behalf. Thank Him too for Jesus, the peace-offering, and commit yourself to living in the future in the very real context of all that we have said today. THURSDAY Luke 16 v 19 – 31 Daniel 3 v 1 – 28 So far in our study of peace we have looked at “Peace Desired”, today I would like us to look at PEACE DEFINED. The word “peace” means different things to different people. For some, peace would be related to circumstantial issues. For others, peace would be defined in terms of relationships and still for others peace would be defined as a mental condition. The best place to find a good definition of peace is in the Bible. The first thing I would like for you to know about peace, and is clearly shown to us in our first Bible reading today, is that peace is not a “neutral position”. Many would consider death to be the ultimate in neutrality and on many tomb stones would be the words engraved, “Rest in Peace”. People wrongly think that cessation of life is the ultimate in a peaceful position. This is clearly not true. Just the fact that human life ends does not mean that life itself will end. The parable speaks of two places; the one it refers to is,hell, and the other is Abraham’s side (Heaven). Neither of these is a neutral position, but your experience of either of these will be determined by how you ??????????????????????????)Q?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????????????????e??????????????????????????? ??????)??????????????????????????????????Q???????????????????????????????????)Q?????????????)??????????????????????????q?????????????t??????????????))???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????((0