THE ANTIDOTE TO ANGER...
Anger is common to us all. It arises when we are sharply disappointed. There are some things we should be angry about such as injustice, wickedness, corruption, abuse, oppression, and dishonesty. But for some people, anger has become a character trait. That is, they have become very "short-fused". And it's ugly. They get angry too often and for too little. As bad as this is, it is even worse when a Christian is afflicted with anger...
Unhealthy anger robs the Christian of spiritual beauty. It greatly diminishes the Christian's spiritual sensitivity to God.
Matt. 5:22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire.
Anger is not always bad. It can motivate a person to action. It can fuel a timid person with extraordinary confidence. But it can also be unhealthy when it is no longer for a noble purpose, or expressed in a considered manner.
Counselors and Psychologists offer several basic techniques for helping people to deal with anger. These include, behavioural therapy (counting under your breath, going for a walk, spending time alone to cool off). These indeed can be helpful, but there is else for the Christian to consider when anger is out of control.
Unhealthy anger can express itself as rage, depression, frustration or aggression. It might lead to yelling, over-eating, or alcohol-abuse. In every case, it is a focus issue. Unhealthy anger summons our attention. It steals our focus. I blinds our good senses. Consider the opposite of both anger and its effects-
- peace, joy, contentment, relaxation- patience, moderation, self-control.
How can the Christian diminish the grip of unhealthy anger? Consider the words above (which are the opposite of anger and its effects). To diminish unhealthy anger we might need to find how we can cultivate: peace, joy, contentment, relaxation, patience, moderation and self-control. The Christian has a grossly unfair advantage when it comes to cultivating these. The Psalms reveal it; The Gospels model it; The Epistles explain it:Worship God.
For the Christian, unhealthy anger is not merely a behavioural issue, it's a worship issue. The effects of unhealthy anger, rage, depression, over-eating, alcohol-abuse, are really symptoms of misplaced worship. When we worship God we are expressing our surrender to Him. We re-affirming our trust of Him. We are declaring that God is good, His plan is good, His love for us is great, and our need for Him is greater. When we worship God we come into His presence where the Psalmist says is fulness of joy, the apostle says is incomprehensible peace, and the Revelator says that God's presence is the place of all power.
This is one of the reasons why it is critical to worship God in church on Sundays. It's true that we can worship God individually and in private - and we should do this daily by prayer and devotional reading of Scripture - but worshiping in church with fellow worshipers reminds us that life is not just about "me and God" it's intrinsically about "God with us". It provides the right seed-bed of humility for worship by singing together, praying together, partaking of Communion together, giving attention to the Preached Word together. Because we regard all of these things as "worship" we don't think of worship as just being the singing component of our Worship Service.
Worship of God in humility is a powerful antidote to anger. The next time you begin to feel anger rising, take a moment to worship God - "Oh God, I worship You. I need you right now. Please be my peace. Take my hand right now and lead me through this. Please bless those who are upsetting me right now. Lord, I want to glorify You in how I respond to this disappointment. Amen."
Ps. AndrewEph. 3:21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
"Infinity" doesn't exist. It's a made up concept. That's one reason why it' wrong to describe God as infinite. Infinity is also impossible. By definition it can never be reached. God is not like this at all. He wants to be reached. Inifinity is never satisfied. God on the other hand is the very source of satisfaction. Infinity teases the learner by saying there's more to learn. God has nothing to learn because He is omniscient.
How remarkable! How amazing! How aweful! Not only is God seemingly infinitely more knowledgeable than us, more powerful than us, more wise than us, more loving than us, more patient than us, more forgiving than us, more just than us, more compassionate than us - He is here! This is what imminent means. He is close. He is not merely "above" us, He is beside us.
Being literally in a dark place, Paul knew that this depression would not merely be resolved by prayer alone. There were physical issues to deal with. This is why he wanted his cloak. Sometimes we are so sleep-deprived that no matter many pills we pop, or prayers we pray, or shots we drink, our world still seems dark. Sometimes our diets are so full of preservatives and manufactured chemicals that no matter visits we make to our therapist, or chants we make with crossed legs, we are still in a dark place. Sometimes are down-times just need a warm, familiar "cloak" to help us to get some sleep in a damp, dark prison cell.
Then again, while we can get adequate sleep, eat the right kind of a balanced diet, and physically exercise, we must also guardour minds. Paul needed his books. So much of how we feel actually starts between our ears. What we allow into our minds nearly always determines our outlook on life. And the person who fills their mind with ungodly amusement (a= "no" + muse= "to think") and deprives their mind of God's Life-Giving Word, is likely to experience darkness of mind. In the midst Paul's darkness in his prison cell, he could needed his books. What books are you reading at the moment? Do the books you are currently reading cause you to muse ("think")? Good reading can stimulate a darkened mind. This is what John Bunyan found in the 17th century when he was imprisoned for preaching the Gospel. He had his books. It's how Dietrich Bonhoeffer staved off the darkness of his Nazi jail cell. He hadhis books. Good books have a way clearing the fog in our minds. Paul had physical needs that his cloak could satisfy. But while his cloak could warm his body, it could not fire up his mind like his books. If you're feeling down, read a good book. Start with your Bible. Read a Psalm each day. Get a copy of Tim Keller's, Prodigal God. It is a good book. Get an F.W. Boreham book. They are all good books.
But we humans are not just bodies with minds. We are also creatures of heart. This is why Paul wanted his parchments - those letters written to him. These parchments poured something into his heart. They were the sentiments from one heart to his heart. His cloak could warm his body. His books could warm his mind. But his parchments could warm his heart. We all have physical needs, intellectual needs, but especially emotional needs. We all needparchments to warm our hearts. I have two particular files. In one file I keep complaints written to me. This file is large and thick (although it stopped being enlarged a few years ago for reasons that I am tempted to go into now but must resist the temptation for a more appropriate ocassion). The other file is my encouragement file. It is quite thin and not very large. But its contents do immeasurably more than its larger thicker cousin. Yet I do not regard this file as my parchments. My parchments are at home. Some are in a special drawer and comprise of handmade Fathers' Day cards, birthday cards, the ocassional Christmas card, and love letters I have received (all from the same person).
The story goes like this...rescuers finally arrive after years of fruitless searching. They find the man on a deserted island and notice that he's constructed 3 buildings. After enquiring, the man tells them, "Well the first building is my house and the building near it is my church." "But what about that third building?" they ask. "Oh that's the church I used to go to!" It appears that church disruptions can happen in churches of even one person!
Church is like the Quarantine for Heaven. In one respect, you can't leave this life on earth and go directly to Heaven. You obviously have to come to Christ in this life because He is the only means of having our spiritually contagious cancer healed. But in normal circumstance, He doesn't take you straight to Heaven, rather, He places us in "spiritual quarantine" (the local church). It is in this Spiritual Quarantine that we are prepared for Heaven.
In Heaven we will sing our worship. Therefore, in Christ's Spiritual Quarantine He calls us to worship now. Christ sang with His disciples because He loved to worship His Father (Matt. 26:30). Before we get to Heaven, where we will sing our worship to our God for eternity, we are called to practice now in the gathering of the local church. Our worship is of course not just done by singing. In Heaven we will be to talk with God face-to-face for eternity. In the meantime, we are called to practise this now by praying together. In fact, if Christ's Spiritual Quarantine smells of something, it smells of the sweet fragrance of prayer. This is why one of the most important things we do as a church is to pray together in our Sunday night service. As a shepherd in the Quarantine, I can tell whose hearts God has touched and anointed for leadership within the church by observing our Sunday night prayer times. Godly leaders love God's House (the Quarantine) which Jesus angrily cried out was to be: "a House of prayer!" (Mark 11:17).
In Heaven we will discover things about God through the revelation of His Word to us. Therefore, we are called to give our minds to the teaching of God's Word in the Spiritual Quarantine of Christ, the local church. This is why we place so much emphasis on the sound teaching of God's Word, the Bible. There is a major trend today in some "trendy" churches to dismantle the Quarantine aspect of church and avoid the serious topics and teachings of the Bible in the pursuit of being "relevant". But as Ravi Zacharias says, "It is the truth that makes what you say relevant. If what you say is not grounded in truth - no matter how relevant you sound - you are irrelevant!"
Secondly, in Heaven we will not be able to witness to the lost about the Saviour. Christ calls us (read: "commissions us") to unashamedly bear witness to not-yet-Christ-believers and to pray that our witness will be fruitful and effective. It is my daily prayer that Christ use me to bring people to belief in Christ. Throughout each day, I pour my energies into doing whatever I can to either bring people to Christ, or to assist others who are also trying to do this. When I was a teenager, I had a powerful encounter with God. I was so deeply moved after I was baptised in the Holy Spirit with a profound burden for the lost that I dedicated my life to God to reach as many people as I could for Christ. This led me to the streets of Geelong each Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights where I would hand out Gospel tracts and preach to whoever would listen. I could never have imagined then that I would be preaching to thousands each week through radio and the internet. But in the midst of all this, I'm still praying for my neighbours, my students, my tennis buddies and those that I come into contact with and strike up a conversation with. Added to this I am extremely sensitive every Sunday when we have visitors and I am preaching perhaps the last time they'll ever hear the Gospel.
Christ loves His church. The Devil despises it! The Church is a living reminder to the Devil that Christ rose from the dead and is continuing His two-fold mission of saving the lost and building His church! Little wonder the Devil does all he can do to undermine the church. The local church is not an optional extra for those claiming to be a believer. Even a light reading the New Testament will leave the new believer realising that the 22 epistles refers to "one another" over 40 times, and "together" over 20 times. It employs these precious terms in one of its last epistles when it says-
What a glorious reminder that the Church is not a sterile duty - no, it's a Quarantine of health and life that fits us for Heaven and places us in partnership with Christ as He seeks to win the lost of our Valley. This is why we meet each Sunday to worship, witness, and receive the Word. It's why we meet Sunday nights in particular to pray, testify and minister to one another. It's why we meet through the week in homes to study and reflect on God's Word, to share with each other our needs, and to support each other. By doing this we are helping to build not just a Holy, healthy life-giving Quarantine, but a "
A person's character capacity is measured by what ruffles or overwhelms them. If you're being stretched, God is entrusting you with a greater role in His mission. All good leaders are "stretched" leaders. All great leaders are greatly stretched leaders. Whom God stretches God strengthens...
Stretching necessarily changes the shape of its host. But once strtched, its almost impossiblefor the one stretched to return to its original shape. What I do these days, I could not do ten years ago. Some people occasionally note that I have more on my plate than many, and ask how I fit it all in. I rarely confess my nagging sense of inadequacy, or my doggard burden of guilt at not being able to do better at any one of the things I do. And almost never do I do confess my pathetically (in the archaic sense, not the modern sense) repititious prayer for God's help to be able to do what I have to do.
Because stretching involves changing, it will always be uncomfortable. My most natural response to change is nostalgia - a longing for way things were. The best way I have found to maximise the blessing of change in my life is to embrace it. Of course this was very difficult at first especially since much of the change I was dealing with was the result of my own mistakes and failures! As my theology grew to integrate my freely chosen mistakes with God's fore-ordained sovereign will I have been able to see that God is the Driver of change in my life. Today, I read a very insightful comment from Bishop N.T. Wright about this relationship between my freely chosen mistakes and the work of God's Spirit in my life. He observed that the more the Holy Spirit sanctifies us and empowers us to life holy lives for God, the more freedom we have not to! That is, what makes the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives all the more amazing is that as we grow by the power of the Holy Spirit we also seem to have to make more careful choices and take more intentional steps to respond obediently to God.
"How do you get so much done?" I could be blunt in responding to this oft asked question, but I know it would sound rude and perhaps even arrogant. So I won't say this to anyone who asks: There is a lot I don't do. What I mean by this is, there are many other things I would rather be doing sometimes than fulfilling my responsibilities, but I understand that I must make certain sacrifices in carrying these responsibilities. Every caring parent understands this because the entire first stage of parenting involves constant sacrifice. But as parents know, sacrifice is often a season and it is alwasys a season of sowing.
So if you are being stretched at the moment you'll readily identify with what I have written. Stretching brings change which is always uncomfortable - that is, it takes us out of our comfort-zone and takes us on an uncharted trail called: faith. Stretching also requiressacrifice. But the stretching process invokes God's grace. This means that as we stretch God helps us to cope. But, as N.T. Wright points out, it's going to feel like we are the ones exerting the effort. And, stretching involves sacrifice. You have to sacrifice idleness, T.V., sleeping in (or just sleep generally), privacy, and whims. But the "up" side of being stretched, and it's a huge (read: humungous) up side: you will be a larger blessing to many more people than you would in your unstretched state. Potentially this could mean that precious souls are found by Christ who might never have come to know the Eternal Lover of their soul. And, it will also have an eternal bearing on how we are rewarded in Eternity. So, stretching, while uncomfortable, is actually glorious both for God and in the end for us.
Firstly, to be accepted. This is a powerful insight. If you feel accepted by those in your world, you will feel at ease. If you want people to be attracted to you, be an accepting person. If, however, you are a highly picky and confrontational person, you will be seen as an unattractive person. Whether we accept someone or not is tested when they fail and let us down. Because we crave acceptance it makes rejection all the more painful.
Thirdly, to be affirmed. This involves what a person does. Their performance. Their productivity. The artist is affirmed by the viewer appreciating their art. The musician is affirmed when their audience applauds. The wife is affirmed when her husband thanks her for the evening meal, the washing being done, the house being kept. The husband is affirmed when his wife thanks him for providing. The child is affirmed when they present their finger painting to their parent and hear what a clever, creative artist they are. Wise leaders know that the will get the most out of their team when they affirm them. When a work colleague tells another colleague that they have done a great job, it doesn't carry the same weight as when the boss says it. In a church, when a pastor affirms someone it carries great weight and fosters loyalty.
Fifthly, to feel secure. Wise husbands never threaten to leave their wife. Wise leaders never talk of quitting on those they lead. Wise parents never threaten to disown their children. We all crave to feel secure. Security gives a person a sense of ease and even a sense of control. The wise leader who leads his people to feel secure will avoid or minimise surprises. They will pre-empt certain decisions and actions so that those around them can securely feel comfortable in the knowledge that they know what is happening. Women are generally less secure than men. Rather than ridicule the women in your life for their insecurity, instead take steps to provide the security they need. This is done by being consistent, reliable, dependable, and practicing the above 4 needs.
When Kim and I arrived at Legana some 16 years ago (we celebrate our 16th year of Pastoral Ministry at Legana this Sunday) we felt strongly that we were to sow our lives into this work. Despite letting people know this, after two years of pastoring Legana many people asked us if we would be "moving on" now? We assured them that we were here to stay unless the Lord clearly said otherwise. People don't ask this of us any more. And we hope that our actions speak for us and that this provides people at Legana with security. When leaders endure and don't bail or quit, they cultivate security.
The world has been blessed by God with some great preachers, who have been able to move people over land and sea to come to Christ. I'm not one of them. My preaching tends to move people by inches...
Here's how we can do it. Whatever you do in the church, do it to move someone else "an inch". If you are preparing Communion, prepare Communion for "an inch". There may be someone who comes to our church service who needs to stop, reflect on Christ's atonement, and receive Christ's forgiveness afresh. Their marriage tension, or their business stresses, or their failing health, may have moved them "an inch" away from Jesus. But as they take the Communion Cup and the unleavened bread, which someone has prepared, they are moved "an inch" closer back to Christ. Your Communion preparation is an act of partnership with the preacher. If you are welcoming people as they enter our building, your smile and warmth of heart can help move them "an inch" closer to Jesus. You may never know what kind of horrible week some people might have had who walk through our doors. Your genuine welcome is an act of partnership with the preacher.
For me to move people an inch as a preacher, I have to work harder than most, because most other preachers can at least move people a foot. But for me to move people an inch, I have to read a lot. I have to study a lot. I have to ponder a lot. I have to pray a lot. I have to write a lot. Because I am also a member of the congregation that I am pastoring, I also try to cultivate the inch I am preaching for before I preach. How I conduct myself throughout the week. How I treat my wife and children. How I treat those I work with. How I treat those outside of a church throughout the week. All of these acts of service factor into determining whether this preacher will move these people "an inch".
But moving people, even "an inch", is not an easy thing. In fact, there are many things which move people away an inch - a thoughtless remark / an inconsiderate look / a forgotten birthday / a lapse in Christian consistency / an inappropriate FaceBook comment / flaunting road laws / excessive drinking or gluttony / slothfulness / passionless spirituality, and so on. I am ever mindful that I have, through dropping my guard, moved people "an inch" - but in the wrong direction!
We want to move people "an inch" closer to Christ. Will you help me? You can. Take a minute each day for the preaching to be more effective and you are partnering in our efforts to move people an inch. If you wipe chairs or tables before a service, don't do it with your hands, instead do it with your heart. It's your passionate service of Christ in contributing to helping us conduct a worship service that moves people an inch. Be an under-shepherd after our services to someone by getting to know them and making them feel welcome. By doing this you help to move someone an inch.
The Word of God is living...
This type of Bible reading is called "exegetical" (ex="out", exegetical means to get out of the text). It is the safest way to read the Bible. But it's not the only legitiamte way to read the Bible. There is a way to read the Bible so that you are "hearing" from God. It involves prayerfully approaching your Bible reading with God-seeking questions.
At Bonhoeffer's darkest hours he found the Word of God not merely to be the inerrant, infallible Word of God, but the living Word of God which not just spoke - but spoke to him! Eric Metaxas gives numerous examples of this. These examples provoked me to ponder the numerous ocassions this has happened and still happens in my own reading of Scripture.