Sanctify...Be Ready!

"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear" (1 Peter 3:15).

We generally use this verse to encourage fellow Christians (and ourselves) to study the Bible so that we can have an answer ready for any religious questions that those of the world might pose to us, and certainly, that is an appropriate application of this verse. However, Peter is not instructing us to prepare for these questions ritualistically as we might prepare for a college exam; there is something much deeper here that we often miss in our understanding of this verse.

Peter tells us to sanctify the Lord in our hearts. To sanctify is to set apart, and the question that naturally flows from this point is: what does it mean to set the Lord apart in our hearts? Well, it seems to me that we as people are easily distracted, and perhaps more easily overwhelmed by the barrage of influences in our lives. Our thoughts and feelings about work, family, politics, sports, entertainment, and even Jesus, blend together to form a kind of stew, rather than an organized 5-course meal. It becomes difficult to separate one from the other. Our thoughts are all jumbled together. And yet this shouldn't be the case! Jesus is to be sanctified in our hearts. That is, He's to hold such a special place in our hearts that we are able at any moment to focus our minds on Him.

By sanctifying Him in our hearts, we will be ready at any moment to articulate our faith - to give a defense for the reasons we have for being who we are spiritually. To put it another way, to effectively articulate your faith, don't try to memorize a bunch of answers - instead, exalt Jesus and His will in your own heart; lose yourself in Him; make Him the focus of your life. In so doing, you won't have to search your mind for an answer, and then work up the courage to voice that answer. When you've sanctified Him in your heart, you will be ready at all times to eagerly share your testimony.

So how about you? Have you exalted Jesus in your heart...far above everything else? Has His will infiltrated your mind and by extention influenced every aspect of your life? If someone came to you right now and asked, "Why are you a Christian?"  or, "How can you believe that there is a God?" would you have a defense ready?

Or would you reply with, "Ummmm..."