Shalom

Peace can be found, peace can be felt. Both internally and externally. Rest in that peace and then give it away to others. Denise McKinney concludes our study on dwelling with Christ by encouraging us to live into the peace of Christ.

Shalom

Dwell | Week 5

May 21, 2017 | Denise McKinney

Shalom:

wholeness, completeness, soundness, & welfare

to make things right, or restore

eirene:

eiréneuó: to bring to peace, to be at peace

eirénopoieó - I make peace, reconcile

Shalom is …the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight…Shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be…the full flourishing of human life in all aspects, as God intended it to be.

-Cornelius Plantinga

Ezekiel 34:11-16a (NLT)

For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search and find my sheep. I will be like a shepherd looking for his scattered flock. I will find my sheep and rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on that dark and cloudy day. I will bring them back home to their own land of Israel from among the peoples and nations. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel and by the rivers and in all the places where people live. Yes, I will give them good pastureland on the high hills of Israel. There they will lie down in pleasant places and feed in the lush pastures of the hills. I myself will tend my sheep and give them a place to lie down in peace, says the Sovereign LORD. I will search for my lost ones who strayed away, and I will bring them safely home again. I will bandage the injured and strengthen the weak.

Colossians 1:19-20 (NLT)

For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

Colossians 1:19-20 (MSG)

So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

Peace is not the absence of struggle or pain, but the unmistakable and strong presence of God in it.

Philippians 4:7 (NIV)

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Peace isn’t the absence of conflict or differences, or even war, but the intentional movement toward reconciling and restoring people to God and to each other.

Ephesians 2:14-17 (NIV)

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.

I myself will search

I will be like a shepherd

I will find and rescue

I will bring them back home

I will feed them

I will give them good pastureland

I myself will tend

I will search for my lost ones

I will bandage the injured

I will strengthen the weak

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Audrey Assad