We are on Day 13& 14 of our 1 Peter study! Ladies, I feel like I could burst. I’ve never studied this book before and have loved it so much! Can’t wait to go through chapters 4 & 5 these next few weeks!
Mornings are my favorite time of day. Everything is fresh, quiet and new! I get to wake up and drink coffee and spend time with Jesus. Then the day commences around 7:30 AM. Sometimes it feels like I shut my Bible and immediately face a problem, a full schedule or a distracting emotion. Anyone else a highly emotional creature like me? Almost every day I go through a roller coaster of emotions: happy, tired, stressed, overwhelmed, peaceful, discouraged, excited, disturbed, persevering, giving up…the list could go on and on. My emotions lie to me often. They are a tool Satan uses to keep me distracted and make me ineffective for the kingdom of God.
As I read 1 Peter 3:13-17, the words “in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy” leaped off the page. The word for “heart” in the Greek refers to the “soul, mind, passions, thoughts, emotions, appetites, desires and affections.” That is one loooooong list. When I saw the word emotions, I felt immediate conviction. I never realized how emotional I was until I got married. Men are like solid rocks! There have been times where I have just cried to cry. My husband doesn’t understand my emotions sometimes, and neither do I. They guide me like a ship at sea, driven and tossed about and throwing my life off course.
James warns us of allowing the winds of the world and our fleeting ways guide us. In James 1:6-8 he tells us not to be people who doubt the Lord, because those who doubt are “like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded me, unstable in all his ways.” Unstable. James couldn’t have explained it any better. When we allow emotions to guide our days, we are unstable and unsettled. Emotions can be so good, but when they drive our life, they are tricky and deceitful.
What does it mean to honor Christ with our emotions? It means to live a life of joy that isn’t dependent on circumstances but is grounded in knowledge of Christ. Psalm 16:11 tells us that joy is found in the presence of the Lord and Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Christ bore the cross for joy. Let’s read it with our own eyes:
“looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Honoring Christ Jesus in our hearts is living in the promised joy of salvation, finding all of our hope in the glorious gospel, and magnifying His name to the ends of the earth. John Piper said it beautifully:
Be the first to comment