God's Peace is Better Than Worldly Feasts

Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.

"So Zedekiah gave orders, and they committed Jeremiah to the court of the guard. And a loaf of bread was given him daily from the bakers' street, until all the bread of the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.
~Proverbs 17:1; Jeremiah 37:21, ESV

Yesterday, part of my Bible reading was Proverbs 17. Today, part of my Bible reading was Jeremiah 37. When I came to the last verse of Jeremiah 37, God's faithful Holy Spirit reminded me of Proverbs 17:1.

What a joy and peace we have in Christ! Because God is faithful to complete the good work of salvation He granted to us through His Son, we have the peaceful assurance of sanctification. Our participation in our spiritual growth is simple—daily feed our souls and cleanse our consciences with the Word of God. And the Holy Spirit will not neglect to renew our minds and transform our hearts ever so much more, into the image of Christ Jesus our Lord (Jn 14:26, 1 Cor 2:12-13).

This is something the Prophet Jeremiah knew well—that is better to be unpopular and imprisoned by man for honoring the Lord, than to be popular and accepted by people, who are about to be imprisoned by God for their rebellion against Him.

In this world, a person is deemed successful, inspiring, encouraging, and an asset, only if they amass a great number of "followers" both in real-life and social-media-life. As professing disciples of Jesus Christ, our estimation of these things should not be the same as the world’s, but be the same as our Lord and Master's—joyful submission to God's Word, for His glory, pleasure, praise, and exaltation alone (Jn 15:5-11, Gal 1:10).

We ought to be different from the world, in every way (in thought, word, work ethics, how we worship God, how we dress ourselves, how we keep our homes, how we treat: our spouses, train children, love the saints and the lost).

We ought to be holy.

We ought to be the light to this world; giving sight, knowledge, and understanding of truth to those whose hearts, minds, and souls are darkened by their sins. And the salt of the earth; proclaiming the only life-preserving, life-giving message—the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to a tasteless, baseless, and dying world.

Though we can be, the Bride of Christ is not yet, what Christ saved, equipped, and commanded us to be. Dangerously, too many professing believers imitate the world and its relative definition of good and right, rather than God's righteous definitions of these things.

As long as the children of the Most High God continue to allow ourselves to be lulled to sleep by the temptations of this world—to be our own gods; only using people for our pleasures, rather than loving people for God’s glory, we will continue to be of little good to those we claim to love. It is only when we spend more time in God’s Word, in studying His holy precepts, and loving all His statutes so much, that the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit will flow from within us, to others, effortlessly (1 Cor 2:4-5).

So as we look to celebrate this Thanksgiving holiday with family, friends, and for some of us (as the Lord enables), strangers, that we welcome at our table; let us gather and give thanks differently than the world. Let us remember to give thanks not for the quantity of people around us, but because of the greatness of the God who gave us all life and liberty in Jesus Christ.

For it is far better to spend this Thanksgiving in God’s peace with a few—to give thanks to God Most High for all His goodness to us (Ps 116:12-14), than it is to be gathered with many in strife, for the sake of tradition and social media posts.

I know this article will find many of you in varying, yet common circumstances of life; both pleasant and ill. But no matter what your present state with people may be, if you know Christ and are known by Him, be comforted and encouraged that God is sovereign, God is good, and God loves you in Christ Jesus. Therefore, our Father is using all things (pleasant and painful) to conform you into the image of His Son (Rom 8:28-30). And for this, we can all give thanks to our God above, for all that He wills to happen here below.

Never forget…

Peace and happiness are not found from the absence of conflict with people. Peace and happiness are found only, in the absence of conflict with God.

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