1 Peter 3:13-15 “If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.” This episode talks about how we should ignore those that are unkind to us and keep our focus on Jesus. Also, that we should know why we believe what we believe and be ready to defend it respectfully. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keep Your Hearts At Attention
1 Peter 3:13-15 “If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.”
I decided to use the message translation today as I like how it puts the verse in more modern day terms and sometimes makes it easier to understand, or easier to apply it to our current day and time. This verse starts out by saying that if we do are doing good with our whole heart than nothing can stop us. Who would want to stop us from doing good? Then it goes on to say that even if we suffer for doing good, we are still better off than if we did evil. Yesterday we talked about how God doesn’t want us to repay evil with evil and if we instead repay evil with blessing then we will inherit a blessing. This verse is saying it’s worth it. Doing good is always better than the alternative, even if it is not easy for you.
Next it goes on to say that we shouldn’t worry about those that are against us. How many times have you heard that while you were growing up? I was picked on quite a bit when I was a child. I was from a big family, I didn’t have the nicest clothes, I really liked sleep, so sometimes I would forgo brushing my hair or changing my clothes if it meant that I could sleep for 5 extra minutes. I don’t really blame the kids that picked on me, as being a kid is hard and we are all just doing the best we can. However, being picked on a lot meant that my parents often told me to just ignore the other person. To not let what they say bother me. They will stop saying it if they realize it doesn’t bother you. This makes sense and I have probably even said it to my boys. However, it really doesn’t help the situation.
This verse isn’t just telling us to ignore the other person, it’s telling us to keep our hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. In other words, don’t let those that are being unkind distract us from our real focus, which is Jesus. The enemy loves to distract us and get us thinking about anything else. He doesn’t like it when we think of Jesus because then we think of love and joy and happiness. If we were constantly thinking about and adoring Jesus we wouldn’t have time to be worried about what others were thinking about us.
This next line is actually the one line that stuck out to me the most. “Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.” This is one that I struggled with for a long time. I went to religious education when I was a child and even in my teen years. I went to a Catholic Church my whole life and I knew the beliefs that I held. However, I did not always know why we believed them or any foundations for them. When I was asked by people of other faiths things like “Why do Catholics worship Mary” or “Who gave priests the right to forgive our sins” I didn’t know what to say. When I was an adult I wanted to understand my religion more, so I started to study it. I did Bible studies and I went to classes that talked about why we believe what we believe. It has been really beneficial and I have learned a lot over the years.
The Catholic Faith has been around for over 2,000 years. It is one that Jesus started and then appointed His disciples to go out and share it with the world. There is a reason for everything that we believe and it helps if we know what that is. If you understand the things that you believe you can get into conversations with people and not get so flustered. If you know why you believe what you believe then you can help spread the good news to others. We are all called to evangelization. This is something that I was not happy to learn as the idea of going out and talking to others about religion always scared me. However, the more you learn, the more you want to talk about it. I think the reason it scared me so much before is because I was picturing going up to perfect strangers and starting up a conversation about Jesus. This may be what some of us are called to and that is great if you can do that. I think some of us are being called to spread the gospel to those around us. Do you talk about Jesus in your homes or with your friends?
I remember the first time my good friend Kath and I had a discussion about God. It was so nice. I had talked about God in Bible studies and at prayer group, and I enjoyed it. However the more I learned and the more I studied, the more I began to talk about God or scripture in my every day life as well. I did not have a lot of friends at the time that were the interested in talking about God, and after a few conversations with Kath I realized that is what I was missing, that I didn’t know I was missing. I wanted to be surrounded by people that didn’t mind when I talked about God. If you don’t have a peer group that you can talk about God with, you are really missing out. My workout group is comprised of 8 Christian women. We are not all the same religion, we are all very different in jobs and upbringings. Yet, we all love Jesus and we can talk about Him all we want. We don’t hesitate to ask each other to pray for us or to celebrate and give God all the glory when something amazing happens. When we struggle, we don’t just sit around and complain. We raise each other up, send each scripture or worship songs. We spread God’s love to each other.
If you are not sure why you believe what you believe what you believe, I urge you to join a bible study, listen to podcasts, find a church community where you are surrounded by others that love Jesus. The Bible in a Year Podcast with Father Mike Schmidt is a great way to learn scripture. It is only 20-30 minutes a day, he does all the reading and the explaining and all you have to do it listen. I have learned so much from Him and from scripture. If you do not have friends or family that you can openly talk about your faith with the I recommend trying to find some. You grow so much when you have a faith community to share your growth with. Being surrounded by people who share your love of Jesus is so much fun. I highly recommend it to one and all.
Next, the verse says, “Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath.” I love this translation. What this is saying is that we should take the higher road. We should be kind, even if others aren’t. Then when people want to accuse of something, there is nothing they can say. They have nothing to accuse us of because we haven’t done anything wrong. I like how in this translation is says that when people throw mud, it won’t stick. That is quite the visual. I also like when it says that they will realize that they’re the ones who need a bath. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Even if nothing sticks, our enemies still tend to throw stuff just to see if others will believe it. It usually takes awhile for them to realize that they are the ones that need to change. At least if we are keeping our hearts focused on Jesus then we will have stay out of trouble ourselves. We can leave the rest up to the Lord.
The verse ends with, “It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.” This sums it all up pretty nicely. Jesus suffered for our sins. How are we going to repay Him for that? Can we choose to do good, even if it means we may suffer?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to choose to do the right thing, even when it is difficult, even if it means we may suffer. Lord, you sent your only son to us so that He could die for our sins. Please help us to not let that be in vain. Help us to repay that with choosing to do good. Lord, give us a desire to learn more about You and more about our faith. Help us to learn all we need to know to explain our reasons for hope to all that ask. We want to spread your gospel, your word, your love, peace and joy to all. We need your help though Lord. Please give us all the grace we need to do this. We love you Lord, you are amazing. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!