Hit the heart. ❤️ Restack it.
I had a dog for four years that was the most secure animal I’ve ever seen.
He’d sit in the front yard. Just sit there. Calm. Still. Like he owned the whole block and knew it. Dogs would walk by on the sidewalk, and he’d look at them. That’s it. Just look. No barking. No growling. No teeth. Just a slow turn of the head and a look that said, I know what I can do. I don’t need to prove it.
The neighbors would stop and tell me what a great dog he was. How they’d never seen a dog so calm. How the other dogs would lose their minds, and mine would just sit there like a king on a porch.
I loved that about him. A dog so confident in his own territory that he didn’t need to announce it to every mutt that walked past.
Then something changed.
Last year. Don’t know what happened. Don’t know what flipped. But every dog that comes by now — every single one — he goes off.
Barking. Snarling. Losing his mind. The neighbor’s dog barks; he barks back. That dog barks, he barks back. Back and forth. Back and forth. All day. All night. The whole neighborhood is his territory now, and he needs everyone to know it.
My neighbors don’t come by anymore to tell me what a good dog he is.
You know what changed? He got insecure. The dog that used to sit in silence because he knew who he was started barking at everything because he forgot.
That’s Christian X right now.
Every account barking at every other account. Railing back and forth like two dogs on a fence line. Somebody posts something. Somebody rails. The other one rails back. And then they rail. And then they rail back.
Railing. Railing. Railing. Railing. Railing. Railing.
At some point, somebody’s got to get off this train.
Turn to 1 Peter 3. Verse 10.
For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile.
Love life. See good days.
I don’t know a man alive who doesn’t want that. The guy sitting in a dead marriage wants that. The man working a job that’s crushing his soul wants that. The father, watching his kids slip away, wants that. The believer scrolling X at midnight, watching Christians eat each other alive — he wants that more than any of them.
But most men are too busy barking to find it.
Peter lays out five things in this passage. Five. Not complicated. Not seminary-level. The kind of thing a garbage truck driver can understand at 4 AM with coffee in one hand and a KJV in the other.
Five secrets to loving life and seeing good days. Even when people are railing on you. Especially when people are railing on you.
One. Have one mind.
Back up to verse 8.
Finally, be ye all of one mind.
Not your mind. Not my mind. Not the mind of the guy with 200K followers who sounds smart. His mind.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 2:5
What does that mind look like? Three verses later Philippians tells you.
He humbled Himself. He made Himself of no reputation. He took the form of a servant. He became obedient unto death.
Humble. Servant. Obedient.
That’s the mind of Christ. That’s the standard. Not “what does the algorithm reward?” Not “what gets engagement?” Not “what will make me look right and them look wrong?”
What does God say about this? What saith the scripture?
One mind. And it’s not yours.
You want to love life? Stop trying to get everyone else to agree with your mind and start getting your mind in line with His. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. A five-hundred-minded man — the one who analyzes every facet of every situation until he’s more confused than when he started — is paralyzed. Useless. Frozen.
One mind. His.
Two. Have compassion.
Having compassion one of another. — 1 Peter 3:8
Your heart is hard. Mine too. Sin does that. Life does that. Betrayal does that. The internet does it faster than anything.
But look at how God treats you.
But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. — Psalm 78:38
How many times have you disappointed God? How many times have you sinned against Him and come crawling back? And what did He do?
He didn’t stir up His wrath.
He turned His anger away.
He forgave.
Because He’s full of compassion.
Next time your wrath wants to get stirred up — next time someone rails on you and your hands tighten on the phone and your face gets hot, and you start typing a response that’ll peel paint off their walls — stop. Ask God for a load of His compassion. Ask Him to help you see yourself in their place. In light of your sins against Him and how many times He didn’t destroy you when He had every right to.
Remember the prodigal son. Kid burns through his inheritance. Lives in a pig pen. Comes home smelling like filth. And his father — while the boy was still a great way off — saw him and had compassion and ran to him and fell on his neck and kissed him.
He didn’t run out and demand an apology. He didn’t ask for an explanation. He didn’t say “I told you so.” He just saw the hollowness in his son’s eyes and the filth on his clothes and the malnourished look on his face and he grabbed him.
Compassion moved him. Literally. Made him run.
When’s the last time compassion made you move toward somebody instead of away from them?
Three. Love as brethren.
Love as brethren. — 1 Peter 3:8
Not fight as brethren. We’ve got that one figured out. Don’t need help with that one. The church has been fighting since Acts and we’re still undefeated at it.
The devil is called the accuser of the brethren. Revelation 12:10. That’s his job title. And he’s good at it. Here’s how it works.
First he accuses you to God. Like he did with Job. “Does Job really love you? Take his stuff and watch.”
Then he accuses you to yourself. Like he did with Elijah. “I’m the only one left. Nobody else cares. I’m alone in this.”
Then — and this is the one that’ll gut a church or a marriage or a friendship — he accuses others to you.
Acts 14:2. The unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and made their minds evil affected against the brethren.
Evil affected. Against the brethren.
Do you know how many people have bad thoughts about someone who never did a single thing wrong to them? Because somebody else came along and flapped their mouth. Told them how bad this person was. Poisoned the well. And now you sit there with hatred in your heart toward a brother or sister in Christ based entirely on secondhand accusation.
And the only one who wins is the devil.
You want to know how to beat that? Choose to love the brethren. Love is always a choice. Always.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. — John 13:35
Not by your theology. Not by your follower count. Not by how hard you can rail on someone else’s reputation. By your love. That’s the proof of discipleship. And it’s the one test most of Christian X is failing.
Four. Be pitiful.
Not pitiful like pathetic. Pitiful like full of pity.
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. — Psalm 103:13-14
He knows your frame. Dust. That’s what you are. That’s what I am. That’s what the guy who railed on you this morning is. Dust talking to dust about dust.
If you live long enough — if you live with someone long enough, go to church long enough, stay on the internet long enough — you’re going to see people at their absolute worst. And that ought not to cause you to despise them. It ought to cause you to pity them.
Most people — and I really do mean most people — love God. They don’t always show it the right way. Sometimes the devil messes them up. Sometimes they mess themselves up. But down on their knees before God, if they could have their way, they really want to please Him.
So judge nothing about them in regard to that. And get busy working for the Lord yourself.
He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends. — Proverbs 17:9
You say you’ve forgiven? Then stop bringing it up. God doesn’t hold your sins over you. He removes them as far as the east is from the west. You want to love life and see good days? Do the same for the people in your life.
Five. Be courteous.
I know. Groundbreaking.
Please. Thank you. Basic human decency. The kind of thing your grandmother taught you and the internet erased.
Courteousness is completely lost. There’s a race right now — online and off — to see who can be the nastiest. Who can say the worst thing. Who can deliver the best comeback. Who can humiliate someone faster. And then the other person fires back and they fire back and it never ends.
Evil communications corrupt good manners. — 1 Corinthians 15:33
That’s why I cut off most of what I see online. Not because I’m scared of it. Because I’m in the fight of my life for my own manners. My own decency. My own courtesy. And every railing tweet I read makes me a little worse. A little harder. A little more like the barking dog.
Be courteous. In your home first. To your wife first. To your kids first. Then to the brethren. Then to the world.
You’d be shocked at how many Christian homes have zero courtesy in them. No please. No thank you. No kindness. Just demands and silence and the slow death of a marriage that used to have manners.
Now here’s the part that ties it all together.
Verse 9.
Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
Not rendering evil for evil.
Not railing for railing.
Railing is almost always accompanied by accusation. That’s why you respond. Because you receive it as an accusation and you feel incited to defend yourself. The rail comes in and your gut says, I have to respond. I have to set the record straight. I have to defend my name.
No you don’t.
Christ didn’t.
Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. — 1 Peter 2:23
You do not have to respond to every accusation. Especially when you know the truth about how you’ve handled yourself. And God knows it. And by the way — people with sense know it too.
The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going. — Proverbs 14:15
It’s only the simple who believe every word. The prudent see right through it.
Nothing good can come from an evil response to evil. Nothing good can come from railing as a response to railing. It’s an endless cycle. Two dogs barking on a fence line until the whole neighborhood is noise and nobody remembers who started it.
Someone has to stop.
Someone has to sit down in the yard and remember who he is and whose territory this actually belongs to.
Contrariwise blessing.
When they curse — bless. When they rail — bless. When they accuse — bless.
That’s the calling. That’s where the blessing comes. Not from winning the argument. From ending the cycle.
My dog used to sit in silence because he was secure. He knew his yard. He knew his strength. He didn’t need every passing mutt to confirm it.
Then he forgot. And now he barks at everything.
I’ve been that dog. On X. In my marriage. In my walk. Barking at everything that passes the fence because somewhere along the line, I forgot whose yard I was sitting in.
One mind. Compassion. Love. Pity. Courtesy.
And when the railing comes — and it will come, it came for me today, it’ll come for you tomorrow — don’t bark back.
Sit down. Remember who you are. Remember whose yard this is.
And be the dog the neighbors can’t stop talking about.
This work is reader-supported. If this hit you and you want to keep the lights on:
P.S. I got railed yesterday. Palm Sunday. By Christians. While I was at church. I wrote about that too — the full confession, the Duran Duran song that named what I’ve been grieving, the warm gun that every believer on X is carrying. That post is also free on The Biblical Man. But this one is the other side of the coin. That post was the wound. This one is the medicine. Five things from 1 Peter 3. Straight from the text. Applied to the dumpster fire that is Christian social media in 2026. Read both. Then get off your phone and go be courteous to your wife.