Peace, Peace.

Hi babies!!
How goes it?! Long time no talk to! Did you enjoy hearing from a fellow Wolfie (and one of my besties?!)?? I saw both posts when I was across the pond and was glad to know you were in good hands!
I am back from the Middle East just two days now and my body still does not want to succumb to time-zone transition! Ah! Needless to say, I am sleeping like a baby:
Up at 10:00, 2:00, and 4:00. And then wanting naps.
: )

Wow. I have been out of the country quite a bit in my 20-something years, but Israel is just….so…not like the rest of the world.

It is so…..not Roman.
Not Western.

Seriously.

But it is fantastic. My mind was blown and I have so much to tell you! But in my current exhaustion, all of my thoughts seem to be still jumbled and I don't have the foggiest idea of where to start or what to tell you first.

So while I wait to figure out what I want to say, have some pictures!

For those who want to know--this is what Israel looks like from the air.

 

First-morning-Sea-of-Galilee-in-the-background-Selfie.

Oh Israeli olives, I wish I could buy you here.

Where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount! Whoa.

Sea of Galilee from Sermon on the Mount spot!

Add caption

Synagogue at Capernaum

On a boat on the Sea of Galilee. I may or may not have tried to walk on water.

Wadi Hamman, where the Zealots carved houses and caves into the side of cliffs.

Close-up. Now that is dedication to your beliefs, Wolfies.

In between these two hills is a little path called the Via Maris. This is a road that Jesus walked a lot if he was going from the north (Galilee territories down to Jerusalem, etc.). This place was legit.

So, there are some pictures for you to start with. More to come, don’t you worry.

I suppose I do know what I could say right now.

It is obvious when you are there to feel the tension. Groups of people still at war, after thousands of years. It’s a spiritual war. Period. Always has been and will continue to be until Jesus comes again and makes it all right once and for all.

And it’s a war between religions; religions that ignore the Christ. Some of them are waiting for him, others are waiting for someone else. Regardless of which camp they are in, they don’t know Jesus.

Which is why they war; it’s why they fight. It’s why there is no peace.

At the beginning of most of the Epistles there is a little line that I have never paid much attention to; it’s never made much sense. Until now.

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

It’s a nice greeting, that’s what I always thought.

And that’s what I would have continued to feel, no doubt, unless I went there and felt the tension.

The lack of peace.

Unless I went and saw those religions that war, those religions that, well, that don’t have grace and peace to offer.

Grace comes from a God who gives us a Salvation we don’t deserve, and peace comes when you are in right standing with God.

Nothing else outside of Jesus gives you that.

Grace and Peace. Those are not found commodities. Works-based religions can’t offer you that.

Instead of grace they say, “You will be rewarded or cursed for what you have done; now get your act together; do not make your God angry.”

Instead of peace they having striving. They have no rest in the arms of a God who came to reconcile a people who can’t save themselves; a people who fail every time.

See, it’s not just a nice greeting. It’s a revolutionary theology. Grace, which they had never known, and peace, which they cannot attain, be yours.

Salvation came, Wolfies. Our Messiah has come. We don’t need to war, against ourselves or others. He has come.

With grace and peace in his hands.

Rest in what is accomplished that you couldn’t do yourself.

Love you all. Thanks for being a blessing in my life.