Ripe old testimonies of peace

There's an old hymn popularly sung in the Philippines that goes:

The mercies of God What a theme for my song
Oh I never could number them o'er
They're more than the stars in the heavenly dome
Or the sands of the wavebeaten shore

Chorus
For mercies so great, What return can I make
For mercies so constant and sure
I'll love him, I'll serve Him with all that I have
As long as my life shall endure

Jeanne Calment, a French woman recognized as "having the longest confirmed human lifespan," died in 1997 at the age of 122 1/2.  She is said to have joked soon before her departure: "I've been forgotten by our dear Lord." Another quote: "Death doesn't frighten me; now I can think peacefully of ending a long life."

In a YouTube video of a 105-year-old Scottish woman, Jessie Jordan, celebrating her 105th birthday, the tag line reads, "What she credits her longevity to." You watch for 5 minutes and then hear her give her one-word answer: "Peace."

The camera pans out on her little nursing-home room to reveal an open Bible on a table. She goes on to give the gospel and encourages others to enjoy the health gift of forgiving and understanding God's forgiveness.

A story I found online reveals that Jessie Jordan's life (she died in 2011) was "marked with a profound Christian faith and she really lived that faith. Her faith brought her peace, and she recognized how precious peace of heart is in life. Even in her advanced age, she easily recited a handful of Bible verses."

*****

When Ruth Hilliard of Northhampton County, N.C. turned 106 years old in 2019, the national Christian media picked up on it. On TV, radio and in Christian publications, the career school teacher and Sunday School teacher readily credited her longevity to faith in God. News spots pointed out that while Hilliard’s vision "is not as good as it once was, she still recites Christian scripture on a regular basis."

Ruth named Psalm 91: 14-16 as her favorite Bible passage: [14] Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
[15] He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
[16] With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

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When you renew your mind daily with Scripture, it transforms you; it has to do with focusing on who God’s made you in Christ, says Richard Jordan.

When you do that, here’s what happens--I Thessalonians 2:13 says, [13] For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

To be transformed, that is, there’s something inside of you which comes out. Jesus went up on the mount of transfiguration and who He was inside shined out of Him and that’s that word ‘transformed.’

By the way, I’m always interested in that "to will is present but how to perform." How do you do this, Paul? Well, that’s what he said in Romans 7:18: "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not."

He said, "I want to do, to will is present with me, but I can’t figure out how to do it." Then he gets over to chapter 12 and he says, "You know how you do it? Be not conformed." You’re transformed by the renewing of your mind.

What is it about that? It’s the doctrine renewing, causing you to think like God thinks. The life of Christ is in that doctrine. Jesus said, "The words is speak unto you they are spirit and they are life."

Paul says in Ephesians 3:16, "That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man."

Who wrote the Word of God? The Spirit of God. You know how the Spirit of God works? In the song, “Blessed Assurance,” it says, "Angels descending, bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love," but we say, "We don’t believe that!"

We don’t have any angels descending, bringing from above echoes of mercy. Where do you get the echoes of mercy, whispers of love? It’s in the Book sitting in front of you! You don’t have an angel descending, bringing you that. God the Holy Ghost wrote about it and preserved it through history and has got it sitting for you in your own language in your lap. You’re not living some experience; you’ve got it already!

You see, you’ve got the information, and when you BELIEVE it, it becomes the energy and the life and the transforming power down in your soul that His life then works out through you.

You go back to Romans 12:2 and you see the purpose for the renewed mind is that "we may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." The purpose of the renewed mind is so you can properly evaluate life and determine in the details of your life what it is God would have you to do.

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I don't think Believers appreciate near enough the fact that just by taking God at His Word--truly believing the Bible, dispensationally considered, contains absolutely everything God wants us to know about Him and our relationship to Him--lends real power. It's internal power that shatters anything the world has to offer.

It's that ability God gives in the inner man, strengthened with might. It's an energy in your inner man to endure. That's spiritual power. There's something about that strength, that power that God gives. No great open physical displays and things that make everybody "ooh" and 'ahh,' but that "patient continuance in well doing."

He's saying not only can we know something about the breadth, length, depth and height of Jesus Christ's love for us, but we can truly know it and its power to work in us. The power is in the faith in it.

Through knowing the measurements, dimensions and parameters of exactly what God is doing today, there's a maturing of the relationship that is extremely intimate and lends deep, deep communion.

You can not just know about His tremendous love, but KNOW it, appreciate it, enter into it and find out how it passes knowledge. Just as it is in a momma's touch with a newborn baby, there's a love there and a communication there that passes any ability to understand and explain it.

It's that kind of a bond, that kind of a connection. It's as though it were a mother's touch that reaches down and assuages the hurt and salves the wound and dispels the fear and gives untold strength and stability.

*****

"To study the Bible, you take all these little pieces that take 30-45 minutes apiece to study and work out and get into your understanding; that’s a piece. It takes time. I spend at least 20 hours a week just to study, not to prepare and get ready to teach and preach. I usually can get ready to do that in a couple of hours. It doesn’t take a lot of time to do that when you’ve done all the other study. My biggest problem is to cull stuff out, to pick the stuff I want to use out of this big pile of stuff.

“When I lost my Bible, I spent a long time in just a grieving process, not because I lost my Bible, but because I lost YEARS of notes and answers. You work through things and you work it out and you spend a day or two working out a problem and it’s a knotty thing but you work through and get to a conclusion.

“You write the references down and you write a note that explains it and I can read that little note and all that information will pop back up on the screen in my mind.

“When I lost the Bible what kept bothering me is I’d go start studying something, just like I turned to Isaiah 14, and all that study that I’d done in my other Bible where I’d make a note or something.

“What that note does is sort of capsulizes maybe two days of research in a note you’ve made that you can read in 30 seconds and be reminded about. It just sort of summarizes two days of thinking and research and stuff and you’ve got it capsulized down.

“What happens when I lose a little crib note? Well, I can remember most of it, but sometime maybe you didn’t think about that stuff. Maybe you don’t think about it again for two years. And then you come back across that passage of Scripture and study it and you’re trying to figure out something and that stuff you studied two years ago is going to be the key to understanding what you’re trying to figure out today.

“You get there and you say, ‘You know, if I could figure out that little piece of information there, I could answer this and, you know, I figured that out a couple of years ago and it’s written in the margin of that Bible I lost and then you’re depressed again. You’re ready to go kick the car.

“It doesn’t mean you can’t restudy it; it’s an issue of efficiency and time. I don’t like to do something three times. I like to do it once, get it right and then move on. Build on that. That’s what we do when we study.

“You might think, ‘What’s that got to with anything?’ Well, later on that little piece out there that you didn’t know had anything to do with anything, later on you’ll find that it will be a key for you somewhere else and that’s the way you put the Bible together.

“You just keep adding the information, and the bits, and pretty soon it all kind of fills in. When you study something, don’t get discouraged because you can’t right that minute see some practical application into what you already know. Just remember you’re just putting information on the shelf that later on you’ll be able to pull down and use.”

(note: I am working on my life story and will post some of it tomorrow)