SELLEST OSAST
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander (1 Peter 3:15-16).
Peter tells us to be prepared. This suggests that we ought to expect to have spiritual conversations with people who interact with us. These happen because people observe how we live, not so much because we initiate them.
Today and next Monday, I want to reflect with you on 'being prepared". How do we prepare ourselves for these kinds of conversations? The key, really, is in the opening sentence, "in your hearts revere Christ as Lord."
Such reverence will naturally lead us to prayer. This must be near the top of the list in getting prepared. In this context, there are at least two things that we would pray for. We will ask Jesus to help us live lives that reflect his Lordship. If he is our Lord, we want to honour him in all that we do, as Paul writes, 'whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God' (1 Corinthians 10:31).
We would also ask the Holy Spirit to lead the way. If we are not the main initiators of spiritual conversations, then the Spirit must nudge people around us to ask questions. This is good news for all of us who tend towards shyness or hesitancy of self-disclosure. When such conversations happen, we can engage with the confidence that God himself is at work. Further, we may recall that the outcome or fruitfulness is not up to us. God is the harvester; we are workers in his field.
A second way of being prepared is to meditate on our citizenship. Christians are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Here too, there are two things worth mentioning. On the one hand, the resurrection of Jesus brought the kingdom of God into this present world. Not fully, of course, but through the Holy Spirit, we are already brought into this kingdom which will be the only kingdom that remains when Jesus returns.
On the other hand, if we believe that this is true, that the kingdom of Jesus will survive all the kingdoms of this world, then we will desire to shape our lives according to this kingdom. Who wants to be aligned with a kingdom that is disintegrating? We want to know the ways of this new kingdom. How do citizens of Jesus' kingdom behave? What do they believe? What are their motivations? What do they desire? By the power of the Holy Spirit we change, behaving like Jesus and desiring the things that motivate him.
Being prepared does not begin when we interact with others. It begins with our hearts, in our hearts. It starts by revering Christ as Lord and desiring to do everything we do for his glory
As you journey on, go with his blessing:
Wherever God takes you today, may He fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit and that you may live carefully—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity.
