Colossians 3: 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.
Ahhhh, and anger rears it’s ugly head once again, this time bringing along rage, malice, and slander…..and most of us think, well I do a pretty good job at controlling those. Well we all do….but then again I do a good job paying attention while I am driving, listening to other people, and handing out forgiveness……as I am sure most of you do as well. It all has one common thread. The opportunity does not arise where we have to display them under pressure, or distraction. I pay attention when I am driving…unless my cell phone rings, I always listen to what others have to say…..unless I have something major going on, and I am distracted…. I am always eager to forgive….unless someone hurt me badly….and I so a pretty good job at controlling my anger…….until someone ticks me off. Paul is warning us of a huge trap, one that we fall into all of the time. When we give into anger, rage, malice, slander, and the like, we have given someone else control over us. We have allowed someone that has come into our path the ability to dictate our emotional state. That is the problem with all of those emotions, we take the control away from God, and we place it at the feet of the person who has upset us. People are going to let you down, they will work to tear you down, they will disappoint, and they will under perform. When that happens the easiest thing in the world to do is to fly off the handle, to “lose it” if you will. Now you have a difficult situation, that has just had gasoline poured onto it…..and you are the gasoline. Anger, malice, none of it will change a thing, other than to make the situation worse. Paul also has said not to give the devil a foothold. Anger is a perfect example of a foothold. We open the door just a crack, and the devil will walk right on through. Now instead of showing the world the beauty of the Lord, we show them the foulness of the devil. We have to work everyday to choose to allow the Lord to direct our steps. We have to give Him complete faith, and control. Only then will we see anger for what it really is. A diversion, an opportunity for the devil to take control, and for us to hurt, not heal, destroy, not build, and hate, instead of love. I pray that today and each day forward we get closer to riding ourselves of these things not just most of the time, but the times when it counts!
God Bless,
Brian Thetford
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www.thenewcovenantchurch.com
www.theworkweekwithchrist.blogspot.com
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