I've been reading some C.S. Lewis lately and also Christian fiction novels by Ted Dekker. Almost all of Ted Dekker's novels have focused on the central theme of good and evil, especially the Circle Trilogy novels: Black, Red and White. I've always found this subject fascinating and a bit confusing. My original thoughts were, like many, that God is good and perfect and made us also as good and perfect beings. Therefore, even though we have free will to choose evil, we all begin as innocent children who are innately good. I believed that as infant souls, we are still very close to God because prior to birth, our unborn souls were with God and at birth and early infancy, still so close to our recent separation from God, we are, by nature, good beings with the capacity to choose bad. Not that we are born perfect, but that we are essentially born sinless, perhaps incapable of not eventually falling into sin, but nevertheless sinless at birth.
Now, I'm beginning to believe more that the original fall into sin by Adam and Eve left us all "doomed" to be sinners from birth. While I cannot logically see a newborn infant as a sinner, I'm not sure that it matters. We live in a world that is ruled by fleshly, not spiritual, desires. The environment of the world we live in, hugely separated from the spiritual realm in which God resides, and heavily influenced by the selfish arrogance of satan, makes sin an inevitability no matter how "good" we may have started out. This makes it impossible for us to return to God's presence on our own because God's pureness cannot be tainted by the presence of sin and His righteousness demands that sinners be punished and completely abolished. This is beginning to sound really hopeless!! But we have to remember that God created us originally in complete perfection and without sin, but in His ultimate love and fairness gave us the choice to love and trust Him or to abandon and doubt Him. We chose the latter by listening to the great deceiver and liar and believing that God was keeping some great thing from us. God, our Creator and the One who loves us more than anyone ever could was completely heartbroken by our lack of trust and faith in Him. Determined not to abandon us to our just fate of death for our sins, He created a plan to save us from ourselves. He came and lived among us as one of us, tempted daily by the same fleshly desires of this world as we and He did it perfectly without succumbing to sin, and then allowed Himself to be killed, a perfect sacrifice to attone for all the sins of the world past, present and future. That is a beautiful love story. Never before has anyone and never will anyone love us that much.
Dekker's books, like Showdown, remind us of how tragically lost we all are, of how easily we are led down the path of lies and deception by worldly pleasures, and how utterly incredible it is that we are forgiven for our intolerable and unappreciative behavior. We are so fortunate to have such a loving, giving, merciful and forgiving God above us. So many in this world believe that this world is all there is, and in so believing they give undue value to this world's principles. Colossians 2:8 says "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ". For many years, I believed in many of the pop spiritual beliefs that abound in our world, many of which contradict the Bible or try to add things that aren't there. These "spiritual" meanderings usually left me more confused and unsettled than I was before. They left me with a lot of "well.....maybe this, or maybe that". Matthew 5:37 says "Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes', and your 'No', 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Seven months ago Jesus spoke to my heart personally and all of these texts that I had been reading in place of the Bible became meaningless and empty to me. I completely lost my desire to pursue them. I began to pray more and read the Bible more and to simply talk with Jesus more on a daily basis, and I believe the evil one's hold on me was greatly lessened as I surrendered myself completely to Jesus. Not only is Jesus far better than any pop spirituality I have ever encountered, I need Jesus for my very salvation. I want to be reconciled with God and have a chance to be in His presence again and Jesus is the only way.
As many of those readers who are more mature in their walk with Christ can tell, my posts are very basic stuff and probably mostly what is expected of someone very new to Christ. I embrace that and hope that there are others out there who are also new in their walk with Christ who can identify with my shaky, slow but progressive maturation process and will take heart that they are where they should be, no more no less. I still have lots of questions that I have yet to understand. For example, it appears to me that there were really two Falls from grace. One in the earthly realm with Adam and Eve and one far before that in the heavenly realm with Satan. Apparently heavenly beings were created with the same gift of choice as well? Is evil necessary for us to fully appreciate true goodness or even to identify what is good? Perhaps I'll tackle that in my next post. Until then, my prayer is that my Father in heaven will continue to open up my hardened heart and will fill me to overflowing with His love and goodness and teach me to walk always in His ways each minute of each day and to resist and overcome the evil that surrounds me. I love you Lord!
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Is Anger Controlling You?
My friends, I have a confession to make. I have been controlled by anger. My anger is generally the quiet kind, but nonetheless deadly, both to me and those around me, especially those I love the most. I've been tortured by anger for years. Where does it come from? I don't know for sure. Certainly there were instances in my childhood growing up with an alcoholic, physically abusive father that probably contributed, but I have to take full responsibility for my anger as it exists right now today. Some days it is almost non-existent. Other days, the smallest things irritate me to no end and I tumble in an ever-increasing moodiness that I cannot seem to break free from. There are resentments over things I think should have happened but didn't, things that did happen that shouldn't have. There are the small slights of he/she did or said whatever to me and hurt me. There's irritation that people won't leave me alone or that people won't pay me any attention. There's anger that people did exactly what I expected them to do or that people haven't done what I expected them to do. There's bitterness. There's jealousy. Many times anger is a justification for me to separate myself from others. I know how to do anger. I've begged God to forgive me and now I publicly beg for those of you I've wronged in anger to forgive me also. Eventually, I'll have to make amends privately and in person. First I have to learn alot more about tolerance and forgiveness.
Pastor Young taught us in church this past week that all sins, including anger, come from selfish pride. I agree with that wholeheartedly. I have no doubt whatsoever that my anger stems entirely from focus on my self rather than on others. I'm trying so hard to learn how to die to the self and live totally in Christ, to live in this world but not of this world. For if the things of this world were not so important to me, there would be little for me to be angry about, except for those things that deserve righteous anger because they deal with legitimate wrongs against others. The words "anger" and "angry" are mentioned in the Bible almost 400 times, mostly in the Old Testament, and mostly in reference to God's righteous anger. But the Bible clearly teaches that "the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God" (James 1:19-20). Like all sin, man's anger only serves to separate himself from God and to give the "devil a foothold" (Ephesians 4:26-27). God has a will and a purpose for our lives and when we react in selfish anger, we are, in essence, telling God that we reject His will and plan for us.
We are commanded to respond to everyone with love. As it says in 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs". So how can we live this out in our lives when we are consumed with anger? How can we "rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips (Colossians 3:8)" and "let your gentleness be evident to all (Philippians 4:5)? How can we remember that "the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful (2 Timothy 2:24) and "not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing (1 Peter 3:9)?
An article I found at http://www.foundationsforfreedom.net/Topics/Anger/Anger04.html says there are six steps:
1) The first step is acceptance that we have a spirit of anger within us and that we want and need God to help us overcome this sin.
2) We must deal with our anger by confessing past anger and repenting from present anger. This means amends need to be made both to God and those we have wronged with our anger.
3) We must be totally willing to die to our old selves of anger, bitterness and resentment and begin to live in Christ in a spirit of love, tolerance and forgiveness. Galatians 2:20 says "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me." This requires daily commitment to this task.
4) We must break the stronghold of anger by taking total responsibility for our anger and not minimizing or justifying our selfish anger. This means overcoming our pride and admitting that regardless of what happened to us in the past or is currently happening in the present, we have an obligation to ask Jesus to change us from within, not change somebody else.
5) We must replace anger with acts of kindness. Ephesians 4:31 says "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."
6) We must make a daily commitment to deal with each day's anger as it occurs. It is important not to let our anger smolder and simmer until it gradually reaches the boiling point and scalds someone close to us who does not deserve it. We have to constantly pray for tolerance and forgiveness and resolve anger before we go to sleep at night.
My friends, these are all things that are easy for me to understand and easy for me to write, but very difficult to put into practice. Please bear with me as I undertake this journey and pray hard for me to be touched by Jesus loving hand as I struggle with these issues. Please know that I love you all dearly and I pray that the Lord will help me to focus on loving you all more in the near future.
Pastor Young taught us in church this past week that all sins, including anger, come from selfish pride. I agree with that wholeheartedly. I have no doubt whatsoever that my anger stems entirely from focus on my self rather than on others. I'm trying so hard to learn how to die to the self and live totally in Christ, to live in this world but not of this world. For if the things of this world were not so important to me, there would be little for me to be angry about, except for those things that deserve righteous anger because they deal with legitimate wrongs against others. The words "anger" and "angry" are mentioned in the Bible almost 400 times, mostly in the Old Testament, and mostly in reference to God's righteous anger. But the Bible clearly teaches that "the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God" (James 1:19-20). Like all sin, man's anger only serves to separate himself from God and to give the "devil a foothold" (Ephesians 4:26-27). God has a will and a purpose for our lives and when we react in selfish anger, we are, in essence, telling God that we reject His will and plan for us.
We are commanded to respond to everyone with love. As it says in 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs". So how can we live this out in our lives when we are consumed with anger? How can we "rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips (Colossians 3:8)" and "let your gentleness be evident to all (Philippians 4:5)? How can we remember that "the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful (2 Timothy 2:24) and "not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing (1 Peter 3:9)?
An article I found at http://www.foundationsforfreedom.net/Topics/Anger/Anger04.html says there are six steps:
1) The first step is acceptance that we have a spirit of anger within us and that we want and need God to help us overcome this sin.
2) We must deal with our anger by confessing past anger and repenting from present anger. This means amends need to be made both to God and those we have wronged with our anger.
3) We must be totally willing to die to our old selves of anger, bitterness and resentment and begin to live in Christ in a spirit of love, tolerance and forgiveness. Galatians 2:20 says "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me." This requires daily commitment to this task.
4) We must break the stronghold of anger by taking total responsibility for our anger and not minimizing or justifying our selfish anger. This means overcoming our pride and admitting that regardless of what happened to us in the past or is currently happening in the present, we have an obligation to ask Jesus to change us from within, not change somebody else.
5) We must replace anger with acts of kindness. Ephesians 4:31 says "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."
6) We must make a daily commitment to deal with each day's anger as it occurs. It is important not to let our anger smolder and simmer until it gradually reaches the boiling point and scalds someone close to us who does not deserve it. We have to constantly pray for tolerance and forgiveness and resolve anger before we go to sleep at night.
My friends, these are all things that are easy for me to understand and easy for me to write, but very difficult to put into practice. Please bear with me as I undertake this journey and pray hard for me to be touched by Jesus loving hand as I struggle with these issues. Please know that I love you all dearly and I pray that the Lord will help me to focus on loving you all more in the near future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
