Let Christ Affect You and Rule in Your Hearts
[15] And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. [16] Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. [17] And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:15–17 ESV
When you “let something upset you” you are letting it affect you in your inmost person. It might be disturbing news, someone not doing what you want, or other unmet expectations. That news or thing doesn’t care about you and doesn’t even have thoughts to care about you, it is just news.
Jesus, on the other hand, wants to affect you and does care about you. He desires to increase His peace in you and to draw you closer to other people in whom He is increasing His peace.
The guilty part is that we don’t typically get affected by Jesus the way the nightly news or some Facebook controversy affects us. We’ve let so much stuff dwell in our hearts that the peace of Christ is only a piece of a bunch of other stuff. Paul gives the antidote: be thankful. From thankfulness move on to letting Christ’s words dwell in you richly, not just as a skim on your way to read some other thing. For a long time I realized my only dedicated prayer time was while I was driving in my car. It’s good to pray while you drive, but not if that’s your only prayer diet. McDonald’s is good, but you can’t live a healthy life on it.
Let the words of Christ dwell, and then teach and admonish one another and you’ll all grow in wisdom together. Sing psalms and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your heart. Isn’t it interesting that Paul doesn’t use any of his ‘struggle’ or ‘strive’ language here? It’s because as far as this progression goes, Christ is making the progression in you. Your action verbs in here are “letting” and “being” while Christ is the one that ‘rules’ and ‘dwells.’
Of course, affected in such a way, the next thing happens. We do everything in the Name of the Lord Jesus because we are acting out of His peace. We are no longer acting out of a position of grief or anxiety or despair from the other things that we formerly let dwell in us. We are acting out of our life that is hidden in Christ, and the peace of Christ that is hidden on display in us.
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