Unity, Love, and Peace

God's action in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt showed His great desire to dwell among and protect them, as a good Father wants to do for His children. God wants to live in our hearts, guide us, and direct our steps. 

Our peace is our responsibility, and we must protect it at all costs, place healthy boundaries or borders, and follow the peace and stillness of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will guide us, whisper to us, and protect us as long as we do not rebel against God, repent of our sins, and seek trustworthy guidance and healing from the Helper.  

Follow Us in this episode and journey to wholeness, surrounded by transformational peace and truth. He is waiting!

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Transcript

Hello. Welcome to Reflective Hour. I'm Tammy Toney-Butler, your host today. But we all know who your actual host is, and that's Christ. May you see Him, this program, His healing, and His journey to the Cross for you so you can be set free. May this never be about me; I am merely a vessel that He channels through. I want you to see Him and only Him so He can set you free from addiction, childhood trauma, adversity, negative circumstances, and the weight of it all.

There's hope in Christ. You can be set free. You can be made whole. So we're going to dive in today. So, as always, grab your coffee, grab your tea. Let's reflect together. Let's journey together.

I am still on His journey. I'm still being made a new creature in Christ. He's transforming my heart, my mind, my body, everything. Someone asked me, when will you know that you've arrived? How will you know who you were always supposed to be? I think I'm still asking that question. I don't know. I'm down seventy pounds and walking in His glory and His goodness, shedding addiction after addiction. Being made entirely whole, transformed by the renewal of my mind and heart.

Christ gets all the glory. So, let's dive in and see what He says to you today.

Holy Spirit, I invite You to come so that I can make sure that I only speak Your truth. May they see Your truth. May they have spiritual eyes to see even what's hidden and ears so they can listen to what is said.  May they see the invisible and walk in faith and not by sight.

May they rebuke their adverse circumstance and say no more will I live in bondage. I will be set free now. I choose life. I choose freedom. I choose deliverance. Like the man with a withered hand, stretch it out. Father's waiting. Holy Spirit's waiting to guide you.

Let that peace, breathe that peace in. Let it permeate your very being as we reflect together on this day.

This is Reflective Hour, and this ones about unity, love, and peace. We will start by looking at Exodus 29: 44-46 in the New International Version.

Exodus 29:44-46
New International Version

44: “So I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests.

45: Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God.

46: They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.

God's action in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt showed His great desire to dwell among them and protect them, as a good Father wants to protect His children. God wants to live in our hearts, guide us, and direct our steps.

In Exodus 29: 10- 41. It spoke of a centralized, standardized form of worship that prevented problems of individuals creating their kind of false worship and leading the church astray, the true church. The order prevents division among church members; division can produce an environment of chaos and upheaval and prevent peace and stillness, which is contrary to where the spirit of the Lord dwells. Where Christ dwells, there is no confusion, chaos, or drama—only peace, joy, and love. Satan brings division, which chokes out the accurate word of God.

Now, let's look at the New Testament as a guide as we continue the journey. The letters of Paul to Titus and Timothy are his final writings and signal the end of his life and ministry.

Paul wanted Titus to teach the scriptures as well as live them. We must be doers of the Word. We must teach, encourage, and offer correction when warranted. Correction is love.

Let's look at Titus 2:15, the New International Version.

Titus 2:15
New International Version
15: These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.

We cannot save everyone, nor is it our responsibility as leaders. Our responsibility is to protect the peace, which is how the Holy Spirit flows in and through us and out to others. We must protect the flow, and anyone threatening peace and flow must have a healthy boundary set, a healthy border. Borders and boundaries show we love ourselves and we love others.

If you've been victimized as I was, this is the first thing that predators try to erode or take from us. We must put the guardrails back up and take control of our lives. Our peace is our responsibility. Your peace is your responsibility.

My mother could not protect me as a child. She had no boundaries, no guardrails of protection, thus opening me up to predator after predator, abuse piled upon abuse. Our children deserve our protection. Maintaining our peace and placing healthy borders or boundaries with others ensures their safety and their protection.

Many of us had parents who were incapable of placing boundaries because they had never been taught them and suffered their own victimization. Or, they were parenting in survival mode, in the aftermath of trauma, merely existing, and were incapable of doing so. That was my mother's case. This realization allowed me to forgive my mother and let go of all that hurt, which was destroying me, living in unforgiveness and bitterness. It was so liberating when I was able to forgive her. It was liberating for her, too.

The cycle has to end with you. Protect your peace at all costs and remove unhealthy, divisive people from your life if they refuse to respect your boundaries and your borders.

 You are to pray for them, but they do not get to destroy your peace or your ministry.

Paul warned of that spirit of division and spoke of "right living in society" in Titus 3. Let's read Titus 3. Now, I'll be reading from the New International Version. It's also titled "Saved in Order to Do Good."

Titus 3
New International Version
Saved in Order to Do Good

1: Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good,

2: to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone.

3: At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

4: But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,

5: he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,

6: whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior,

7: so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

8: This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

Now, let's pay close attention to Titus 3, 9: 11.

9: But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.

10: Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them.

11: You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned.

Final Remarks

12: As soon as I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, because I have decided to winter there.

13: Do everything you can to help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way and see that they have everything they need.

14: Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives.

15: Everyone with me sends you greetings. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all.

A person must be warned when he or she is causing division that threatens the church's unity. Remember, we are the church, "where two or three are gathered in My name. There I am with him", as it says in Matthew 18: 20. This warning is not to be a heavy-handed action but is intended to correct the individual's divisive nature and restore him or her true fellowship (NIV, Life Application Study Bible).

Someone who refuses to be corrected and change their negative, divisive behaviors must be put outside your ministry or fellowship. If not, the seeds you are planting will fall on infertile soil and risk being destroyed. This person is sinning, causing division and strife, and needs to have a boundary or border placed so they cannot destroy your peaceful worship and place of stillness with the Lord.

That boundary placed, that gentle form of correction may point them to repentance and rebuking that critical, judgmental spirit and seeking that true freedom at the Cross.

Pray for them, love them, but let them go if need be so the Lord can work further in their life. We are to pray for those who persecute us, as it says in Matthew 5:44.

I remember my own story, my trauma, as I reflect. I would get so angry, and I would also get critical and judgmental. I would be envious of others. I would get offended. I would believe in the negative and focus on the negative. Christ opened my heart, changed my perspective, and I realized that was all residue left over from trauma.

I had to rebuke that critical spirit. I had to rebuke that manipulative spirit, that self-sabotaging spirit, that critical spirit, those spirits of jealousy, strife, envy. I had to rebuke all of that. We all have our path and our purpose in the Kingdom of God. There's room for all of us. We are all fearfully, beautifully, and wonderfully made daughters and sons of the King.

We must maintain our peace so that we can pour into others because you cannot pour from an empty cup. Christ brings us to a Wellspring of Living Water. Every moment we can draw from it, it's always there. He's always ready to pour into your life, into your finances, into your circumstances. Seek Him. He will pour into you His peace that surpasses all understanding.

You will be rejuvenated and renewed in mind, body, and spirit as I was. He will show you the weeds. He will show you the tares in the wheat. And in time, they will be separated. You'll be pruned. You'll be crushed even, but you will move past it all, and you will ask yourself, what is God trying to teach me in this season of my life?

How can I move past these things and move into who He's called me to be on that narrow, righteous path for His Kingdom's sake? That's what this is about our journeys for Him. We are visitors here. This is not our home. Our home is with God. We are here for a purpose. We must fulfill that purpose. And to win souls into the Kingdom of God, to bring unity, not division, peace, stillness, love, and joy.

If I brought that to you today, then I've done what He's called me to do, for His peace that surpasses all understanding. It's what keeps me going each day. As the darkness threatens to consume me, my perspective is to choose the light. My choice is to choose hope. My choice is to put those boundaries in place and let nothing destroy them.

It took me forever to get it, forever to sleep through the night, forever to have that moment of stillness and calm, to where I don't have 60,000 negative thoughts in my head, threatening to consume me and overtake me. He lifted it off of me and set me free, and I will not let anyone take my peace, my joy.

You fight for yours, too. He's waiting. Reach out to Him. Seek the Cross. That's where the Truth is. 

Thank you for joining me on this episode of Reflective Hour with Tammy Toney-Butler.