What does it mean to follow Jesus? If you were going to boil it down to its core, what’s it all about? The Apostle Paul answers that question in Romans 14:17: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…”
Wow!
As I share in this video, following God is 2/3 emotion! Peace and joy are emotions.
This was news to me. I always thought God didn’t care about how we feel. He just wanted to make sure we behave. But that’s not what it says. Yes, righteousness is part of it, but righteousness comes as part of a package. In fact, the implication seens to be that if we don’t have peace and joy, we may not have righteousness either.
Hmm. Once upon a time, I would have been very discouraged about this. I would have thought: Oh, no. Not only do I need to behave, but I also gotta conjure up some kind of peace and joy. How am I going to do that?
But that’s not the idea. Rather this is an invitation. We can do a survey of what’s going on inside. Where am I struggling to feel at peace? Where am I missing joy? Where do I struggle with righteousness? We find those gaps, and then we invite Jesus in.
That’s the idea. God isn’t calling us to some try hard performance. He’s offering what we cannot manufacture on our own. He’s offering freedom. And that will be the subject I’ll be covering with our Inner Wealth subscribers starting 4/13/2019.
Be encouraged. Righteousness, peace, and joy is a gift from God. It’s yours. Just keep inviting Jesus in.
Dwight
