Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15) Let: 1) To cause or to make, 2) give opportunity to or fail to prevent, 3) to free from, or as if from confinement, 4) to permit to enter, pass, or leave There are more definitions for the word let but the point in providing the definitions is that in this verse, it probably doesn’t mean passively failing to prevent. You may need to grant peace permission to enter, but I suspect it’s more active than that. We’re to cause or make the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts. I’ve written before about causing anger to rule in my heart back in my teens and twenties. I encouraged it. There were times I probably picked anger up by the scruff of its neck, carried it into my heart, locked the door, dropped the mangy creature in the middle of the room. There was a time, much later, when I conc...
I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— (I Corinthians 1:4-5) I read this verse in the middle of the night, and thought, “Oh, those proud Corinthians, I don’t have anything to say about this passage.” This morning as I looked at it again, I thought, “Ugh. I haven’t been enriched that way.” The green-eyed dragon peeks out from behind my eyes. It doesn’t help that most of the non-cashiers I work with are far more knowledgeable and/or skilled than I am. While I made wreaths, they were decorating them and/or talking about floral breeding programs and sideline businesses they’ve done. Don’t get me wrong, I’m honored to work with them and I’m thrilled to be learning how to make wreaths, but yesterday, I walked away feeling like the charity case...