Here's Pastor Alan Wright with Today's Blessing: a Biblical Faith-Filled Vision. for your life. I bless you to walk in constant expectancy of the favor of God. because you have been qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints. It's the words of Paul in Colossians 1.12.
because Christ paid it all. none of your weaknesses or faults. can disqualify you from the favor of God. You're under his favor during the night and during the day and in the storm. and in the calm.
Whether you feel it or not, his right hand rests upon you. Whether you see it or not. the grace of God goes Before you. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. Is Jesus telling us that somewhere at the deep command center of our inmost being that we could have?
that kind of peace no matter what. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light.
I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, The Untroubled Heart, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.
So, as you listen to today's teaching, today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Just contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastoralan.org. or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860.
More on this later in the program. But right now. Let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Pastor Alan Wright. And the captain looked around.
and solve it. Everything was in good order. and went back to his quarters. And I like what McDonald writes about that. He writes: all around that submarine, the potential danger of collision was lurking.
It was enough to make any alert captain show concern. But that danger was outside. Down deep inside the sub was a quiet place where there could be absolute control of the ship's destiny. And that's where the captain instinctively headed. On the bridge, the center of command, there was not a hint of panic.
Only a calm and deliberate series of actions being carried out by a highly trained crew Of seamen doing their jobs. Thus, when the commander appeared on the bridge to assure himself that everything was in order. It was. I think that's a good picture of what The Bible probably means by the heart. like a command center.
when life is really jarring. and turbulent. There's a way that we could look to that inmost center, that control center, our heart, and ask, is everything okay? And if it is... Then we're fine.
I don't have time to say much about this now, maybe at a future message, but. Heart seems to be in the Bible distinguished from spirit or soul. Spirit is that regenerated, alive self that lives forever that's within us. We're spiritual beings, and we're born again with a new spirit. Alive to God, and the soul seems to be the mind and emotions and personality, the way we think.
And I read this week in a classic word studies of the New Testament, one scholar suggested something that a ministry friend of mine suggested years ago. That The heart might be that kind of link between spirit and soul. Maybe. How those things that we experience of God in spirit get communicated to our minds. But the heart is this deep, deep place.
that is kind of determining how all of our life and thinking is going to go. Troubled comes from a Greek word that means to stir vigorously or violently. Don't let your heart be all stirred up. It's almost like you can almost feel that physically sometimes when you have anxious things going on in your heart. Your heart almost physically feels stirred.
And afraid actually is a word that means the kind of cowardice that keeps us from moving forward. Don't let your hearts Be troubled. or afraid. Peace. I leave.
Love this. I could have held on to it, Jesus is saying. I could have gone to heaven with it, but instead I leave this peace with you. It's a share in it. It is a gift that's actively being given.
I leave you peace. One of our prayer ministers this morning had a beautiful image, and I thought it just melted me and something inside. It's like so many people in today's world would feel like nobody's left me anything good. And then Jesus comes and says to you, I leave you. Peace.
I bequeath this to you. He's actively giving it to you. And this is one of those places, I think, in Scripture where there's something Jesus says to his disciples in the first century that we can with utmost confidence. claim that he also is saying to every modern day disciple as well. I leave you peace.
I want you to have it. And then he says it's My peace I give you. Peace I leave you. I give you my own peace. And this is.
The thrill of my heart and the thing that is enthralling me. And what I want to travel with you in coming weeks to learn everything I can learn about what this means. to actually share Experience appropriate. and live with the peace of Christ. his own peace.
Which means There's something about us seeing as he's seeing, thinking as he's thinking, experiencing what he's experiencing. He wants that for us. And to say, my peace I give you. Is to suggest that there is something about peace. that is mystically transferable.
And I think instinctively we know that's true. I can't remember if I've told you before about what happened to me some years ago. I was just getting ready to get out of the house and get to the church and preach for our video capture. As I was getting ready to leave the bedroom, I was shocked and dismayed to see. A frantic little bird flying around our bedroom.
I hope you've never had a bird get inside your house. Our windows in our bedroom are all screened over. You couldn't open them up, couldn't get them out that way.
Somehow, this bird's gonna have to get out of the bedroom, down the hallway, and out the front door. And so how are we going to do that? And I gotta go, you know, so I'm already kind of anxious. Like I said, I'm belate already, and I gotta go. And now, this bird, he's more anxious than I am.
We're both anxious.
So we're just a bundle of anxiety in the bedroom.
So I just start waving my arms behind him, like trying to make him, you know, go that way. It doesn't work very well to take a scared creature and make it more scared. It doesn't really solve anything.
So I tried that. I went, I got brooms and mops. I've tried both of them up here. Like, I'm going to try to steer you out of this bedroom. Like, if I can get you out of the bedroom, at least I can get you to where I got some doors that are outside.
Oh, that poor creature would fly around, banging into stuff, banging into the walls, go up and hide under the bed. Hide under the bed. I'll be crawling up under the bed. Get out from under my bed, Bert. And I thought, I'm going to get a big towel, a big old towel.
and I'll throw it over the bird. You can't throw a towel over a small bird flitting around your room. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. The air resistance against the towel, you can't do it fast enough.
And I thought, I've got to call my wife because I'm going to have to close the bedroom door and leave this bird in here, and she's going to come home and find out. And I dreaded it. I called her. I said, Honey, I said, I got to tell you something. There's a bird in our bedroom.
She said, You better get it out. I said, I've got to go preach. You cannot leave a bird that bird no tell what it'll do in our bedroom. And I said, well, I've got what am I going to do? And she said, have you got a net?
I said, no, I don't have a bird net handy, no. She said, well maybe I can go by the store and find a net. I said, I don't got time for you to go to the store, get a net. We got to do something now. And then I said something.
I I wish I hadn't hadn't said it, but I... I did say I could get my tennis racket and just stun the creature. She said, What are you talking about? I said, No, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it.
So I hung up the phone. I thought, I got no idea what I'm going to do. And we're just all frantic in there. And finally, this little thingy voice inside said, I thought you were a man of blessing. And I'm like, well, yeah.
And I was like, well. Might as well try it. Spend my life trying to bless people and tell them that they can do it by God's grace, so I'm going to tell this bird.
So I got real still. I got real calm. And you know And I calmed down and started talking like this to that bird. And you know, that bird settled down and stood out on the floor out in front of me. And we looked at each other.
And I said, little bird? I said, well we've been trying has not been working. I'm anxious, you're anxious. I said, I think it's time to calm down. And then I bless that little bird.
I said, Lil Bird. I believe that you can hop out of this bedroom. and hop down that hallway. He stared at me. I said, I'm sorry about that tennis racket comment.
I didn't mean it.
You know, I would never tell you something that wasn't true. I have no idea how this happened, but it's an absolute truth. I looked at that bird and I blessed him. I said, you can do it. And that bird went.
Hop? Oh yeah. Towards the bedroom door. I could hardly believe my eyes. And I said, that's the way little bird.
Now you just hop on out of here. I'm right here with you. Nobody's going to get hurt. You just hop on, you can do this, Bert. He took two more hops.
And y'all? I'm not making this up. That bird hopped out of my bedroom. Into the hallway, look to the left and right. I slowly got behind them to let them know we're going that way.
And he hopped down the hallway. Didn't fly, hopped. with me walking and talking, blessing him as he went. And he came to the front glass door and stared outside. And I gently opened the door.
and the bird hopped outside. I am the bird whisperer. Don't ever ask me to do it again or ever think it would happen again, but on that day it worked. Proving to some extent, in some mysterious way, Peace. is transferable.
Yeah. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears. You've believed it in your mind.
Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like.
For any woman who has searched for true love, What you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of The Five Love Languages, says, the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy His embrace, revel in His love. After all, it's a match made in heaven.
It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries.
Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again.
is Alan Wright. I mean in some way It's like a parent who calms An anxious child in the night. what the child begins to experience is the parents' peace. I've come here to give you my peace. I'm not afraid of whatever you're afraid of right now.
I know there's nothing under the bed, and there's no harm, and everything's fine. And it's not just that I'm going to try to convince you of that. It's I'm going to let you experience my non-anxious presence. until it becomes yours. I'll hold you as long as need be.
Until you have my piece. That's the promise Jesus is making. I want to transfer. My actual peace. And he says, and honest the world gives.
You'll hear us say this often. All truth is God's truth, which means, beloved, this is why we can affirm. anything good. Mm-hmm. that is consistent with actually God's truth.
This is why if a secular Scientists discover something that will help. Then we say great. That's God's truth.
So I want to be clear. I want to affirm. Everything that's part of God's truth that can help people. people have less anxiety. I want to affirm that, right?
So lots of things, and we may mention more about this, mindfulness. Which is not an Eastern religious idea, it's God's idea, living in the moment. Meditation, which is Getting focused on something beautiful beyond yourself that. is wholesome and Godly. Even things like focused breathing, exercise, being outdoors, behavioral and cognitive therapies, and certainly medications.
All of this I want to. wholeheartedly affirm And we'll continue and refer to some of these things throughout the series. But all of that is, I think, part of. the kind of peace as the world gives. It's not bad.
It's just Jesus is talking about something else. And when Jesus says, not as the world gives, I think he also means that this is not. what the world usually talks about in terms of psychology or religious practices or mental strategies. And it's certainly not limited to any medical interventions, all again, which can be good, but he's saying there's something that's different than that. This is probably his way of saying in the world The way we often try to get peace, and we spend a lot of our energy on this.
is to try to make everything okay so then we can feel okay. For example, my silly illustration. When I packed up my golf balls, put them in the golf bag, walked back to my car and drove away. It was the best thing to do, right?
Now, I could have gone down and blessed the man. did think of that. But the yelling stopped. Because I did what he wanted me to do. And it was the right thing to do.
But whatever measure of piece I had After that, was peace as the world gives. I think what Jesus is saying is. My piece doesn't depend on you getting things fixed around you. And you can't always get things fixed around you, can you? Just can't.
Sometimes they just keep on yelling. This is a piece of the colour. That says I am enough. The gospel is enough. For you.
And so finally, the pressure is off, and you, beloved, are not on the stage, and it's not about you. It's now about Him and His love and His sacrifice and His peace. And that's just bliss. when you experience it. I was reading this week about an English missionary named Alan Gardner.
who had been a military man, was brilliant, had a great career in front of him, and the zeal of the Lord began to consume him for mission. And he wanted to reach unreached peoples. He had in his heart to go to a remote place in South America through the Tierra del Fuego waters. and reach this people. Arrangements had been made for the ship that dropped them off to come back in four months from the Falkland Islands to restore their provisions.
He and his traveler companions had some enough ample provisions to last. But they needed to protect them. They put a fence of thorns around them and their tent. But the locals began to steal. And they retreated as much as they could, but still their provisions were stolen.
They had to find a different place where there was some fresh water. It made them even more vulnerable. And Month after month, their provisions diminished. Until finally They were weary, their supplies were exhausted, and one by one the men died of starvation. And what's interesting about this is that Gardner.
kept a very detailed journal. And when they found his body, it was right next to his journal, and so they know what he wrote on the day of his death. On the last page of the diary, he had written out Psalm 34.10, The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. And underneath it, the last words he pinned were, I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God. That's an untroubled heart.
Is Jesus telling us that somewhere at the deep command center of our inmost being that we could have? that kind of peace no matter what. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. I'll leave you peace.
My peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world does.
So don't let your heart be troubled. or afraid. as the promise of Jesus. It's the offer he makes. And that's the gospel.
Pastor Alan Wright, and today's good news message: Discovering the Calm of Christ. It's from our series, The Untroubled Heart, and we're back here in the studio in just a moment with Pastor Alan, sharing a parting good news thought for the day for you. Stick around. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing.
If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's Daily Blessing. It's free, and just to click away at pastoralen.org. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears. You've believed it in your mind.
Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like.
For any woman who has searched for true love, What you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of The Five Love Languages, says, The incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy His embrace, revel in His love. After all, it's a match made in heaven.
It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allan Wright Ministries.
Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back now in the studio with Pastor Alan at the conclusion of our teaching, discovering the calm of Christ. Pastor Alan, for the person listening who may be dealing with even a high level of anxiety.
To be told, hey, you can find peace in Jesus, that might sound like a Too good to be true, or too simplistic of an answer? Nothing is impossible to God. I think that's the main restraint. Nothing's impossible to God. And I think sometimes when we think about.
The ways that the world might be able to help us, which I endorse, right? I mean, things like mindfulness and And Christian meditation, and focused breathing, and good exercise, behavioral and cognitive therapies, all of these things. But I think sometimes when we think, well, I've tried some of that and This seems too good to be true. We have to go back. to say the gospel of Jesus Christ is miraculous.
We're talking about the impartation of peace from the same God who said he would give us his own spirit.
So if we could believe that we could have Jesus living in us, then we could believe that we could have Jesus' peace living in us.
So to every listener, don't give up. There's a wonderful journey ahead. I hope you'll stay with us. and the very peace of Christ He wants you to have it. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free.
Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production. of Alan Wright Ministries.
