..since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:1

Can you say you have peace with God? I look out on my friends and this world around me and I have to say I don’t see the peace that they claim they have. Our lives are in contrast to the world we live in. The peace we have with God *ONLY* comes from Jesus Christ as Lord. Not our stuff, not our schedule, not our jobs, not the morning cup of coffee… only Jesus. Are we living our lives at peace with God?

 God, today, help us to be faithful to share this peace with our friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and our enemies. That you God, would continue to show mercy and love to us, your creation, as we seek to do your good will.

Oh be careful little eyes what you see!

A few weeks ago I was helping my Son in preparation for a school project looking for pictures of the African Caped Porcupine.  A few searches on Google with my son and I was quickly adjusting the family safe settings on my Google search.  Quickly I realized that my son had seen more than he needed to already.

After that night I modified my network settings with a program on our PC’s called OpenDNS.  A Quick install and I put the restriction at a moderate level and pornography and adult content filters at max.  I am on the internet constantly, a lot of us are.  The continued influx of porn and dirty garbage that floods my office every day just in managing a company’s email servers…. I considered myself callous.  Not to the fact that porn wrecks a lot of marriages, but to the fact that I am inundated to the point  I am not bothered by it any more.  Not good.

Now at least a bulk of the images were being blocked, even on the emails that made it through my filters.  Nice.   I was working on a customer’s website and he complained to me that he was getting a lot of the same spam I battle with every day.   I talked about OpenDNS, my new toy, but in that discussion I realized that SPAM Assasin could be turned up higher and even made to delete more of the garbage that made it through our email and new DNS filters.

What relief!  Just like the old illustration of a frog being boiled alive in the pot, I hadn’t noticed, I had grown tough to the world’s constant attacks on my senses. How often we become complacent with our position in this world.  We are here to CHANGE the world, not to let the world pull us back!

Romans 21:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect

Ephesians 4:22, 23 put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

Our minds can be corrupted and deceived because the flesh is weak.  We are encouraged as Christians to renew our mind and put off the deceitful things the world throws at us.  One of those things is the false assumption that we are callous to sin.  If we are we have bigger problems.

Ephesians 4: 17-32 — “The New Life”