Episode Eight: Ephesians 2:17-18
Dear friends, welcome to Peace Prayers. My name is Juli, and I would love to be able to spend some time with you today. What I'd like to do is read a Scripture from the Bible about peace and then pray it together over our lives. That way we can have a few minutes to start our day with God's peace. I'm so excited to get started with you. Thank you for joining me today.
Today's verse is Ephesians 2:17-18.
He came and preached peace to you who were far away. Peace to those who were near. For through Him, we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Let's pray together.
LORD, You bring us together. That's very amazing because so often we look at each other through the lens of our differences, but You created us all. And the purpose of You coming down to earth and becoming a man was to preach peace to us. You sacrificed everything and endured so much so that we could have peace and so that we could have peace together.
It's not just about our individual salvation, although that is so important and so amazing, and we can't achieve salvation through the religion of our parents or the particular bent of our society. Everybody has an individual salvation choice. Of course, the beauty of that is it's so easy, and I'm so grateful for that. But apart from that, LORD, You wanted to bring us together. With the label of being Your children, being created by You.
And in Your body that was broken, You broke down the hostilities that would divide us. And when we talk about peacemakers, You are the ultimate peacemaker. You literally made peace in Your body when You sacrificed Yourself for our sins, and You reconcile us not just to God through the cross, but You reconcile us to each other. And so, that's Your message. If we were to listen to a sermon from You today, God, You would be saying peace. Peace with each other.
And we have peace because we have access to Your Holy Spirit who provides that peace and spreads it abroad in our hearts. Jesus, when we think about the rest of our day, help us to think about who we can be peaceful with, who we can be a reconciler to, who we can make a bridge toward, who can we lay down our rights for. And, God, this is not saying that we are pushovers. This is not saying that we are people who should stand up under abuse, or not take care of ourselves, or know our own self-worth.
That's not what this is about. This is about us reaching out towards other people through Your example, being more concerned with how we all live together than how we live individually ourselves. I need that very much in my life today. So I pray that for me, and I pray that for everyone who is listening right now. Jesus, be the example of our peace.
Help us to listen to the words of Your message and gather together near and far off under one banner of peace. Take away from us the thoughts that would make us scared of this or make us uncomfortable with this. Take away our selfishness and our pride. Instead, let us surrender to the joy of peace.
In Your name, I pray. Amen.
That is it for me today, my friends. Thank you so much for joining, and I hope you have a wonderful, peaceful rest of your day. If you'd like to connect with me, you can find me over on Instagram at thejulihernandez and I'd love to see you there. Otherwise, we will see you on Friday.
