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So put all evil things out of your life: sexual sinning, doing evil, letting evil thoughts control you, wanting things that are evil, and greed. This is really serving a false god. These things make God angry. Colossians 3:5-6 (NCV)
Most of the time people get angry because they aren’t getting what they want or something is being taken from them. Anger is a protection thing. It’s driven by the inner desire of want. For example, maybe you are wrongfully accused, which is an attack on your character so you become angry because the charges simply aren’t true!
Anger can take many different forms and many different styles. It can show itself in physical attack and abuse, or in emotional manipulation. It can lay deep inside your heart and fester like a cancer and grow so hard that even love has a hard time penetrating it. The power of love isn’t hindered very often, but anger can destroy its power.
When we think of anger, it’s important to remember that our anger is completely different than God’s anger. In fact there is no comparison at all. If someone tells you they are angry at you, what they are really saying, in essence, is that you have offended them. Their reasons for being offended may be wrong. Their feelings may be completely without merit, but they are angry at you because they feel you have attacked who they are.
God’s ‘anger towards us’ isn’t because we’ve attacked his character or made him feel bad about himself. God’s anger is towards the sin in our lives, and the reason sin makes God angry is because he sees what the consequences of sin will do.
God sees the ravaging effects of immorality on the soul of a young girl and hates what it does to her. Our Heavenly Father sees the destruction of the human body and of families and children brought on by alcohol and drugs. He sees the sobbing children who are victims of divorce. He sees his name being used to abuse those who are struggling with life and it makes him angry. God’s anger is directed towards any activity that he knows will bring painful consequences into our lives.
Dear friend, no matter what others have told you. Regardless of the teachings of religious bigots and false prophets, God is not angry at you because he hates you. God is angry about the sin in your life because he loves you and knows that painful consequences await you if you continue on the path you are on.
Allow his love to permeate your heart. Let his forgiveness remove the fear and the pain. Let his Spirit empower you to break free in Christ. You may still have to face some consequences, but he will walk with you even during those times.
PRAYER: Father God, I’ve always been told you were angry with me for the sin in my life. Now I realize your anger is because you love me and don’t want me to hurt anymore. I don’t want to hurt anymore either. Please forgive me for my failures. Empower me with your spirit to live free of the power of sin in my life. Keep me from being afraid of you. In Jesus name, Amen.
“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. John 1:46
By today’s standards it was nothing more than a wide spot in the road. It wouldn’t even have merited a “Speed Reduced Ahead” sign. No tourist attractions or antique malls here. Most likely, were you to drive through at night, you wouldn’t even have realized you just drove through a town! That was Nazareth.
It’s no wonder then that Nathanael asked if there were anything good that could come from that place. It was barely a blimp on a GPS! But don’t be too hard on Nathanael. We do the same thing today. We ask, and sometimes not so graciously,
- Can anything good come from him/her? He/she is divorced you know.
- He’s a [insert your least liked political party here] you know. And you know what ‘they’ are like!
- They go to that church down the street. They can’t be good Christians and go there. Everyone knows that.
- Why, he can’t even speak the language. What good can he be?
- Humph. Don’t tell me they are Christians. They are living together you know.
- They teach at that ‘liberal’ school. They can’t be good Christians and teach there? Can they?
- Once an addict, always an addict. You can’t trust them. Can you?
- You know they did [insert the sin you think is most horrific here]. They can’t be used in any spiritual leadership position now. Can they?
And the list goes on and on. You know it does. You’ve heard the lines yourself. Maybe you’ve even said them on occasion. But Jesus has an answer for each question and the answer is yes. Yes the person struggling with sin, tainted by divorce, victims of abuse or addictions, haunted by the past can be used mightily by God. Good can come from anything and anyone if Jesus has come into their lives. He can forgive the ugliest of sins, repair the most damaged heart, and cleanse the dirtiest conscience. All you have to do to answer the questions above is to look at the nail pierced hand and the scar in his side to know that.
Philip didn’t bother to argue with Nathanael. He simply said ‘come and see’. And so it is with each of us. Before we make judgments about if or how or when Jesus can use damaged people we need only come and see! There is nothing we can do in our lives to be disqualified from Jesus’ forgiveness.
PRAYER: Father God, I confess to you that far too often I judge others on external things and not the heart. I label people by race, religion or political persuasion. I question how you can use people who have done such horrific things to others. Then I look at me and realize that it’s only by your grace I am where I am. Forgive me for not accepting others as you do. Empower me to be more patient and accepting of those who are different than me. In Jesus name, Amen.
Suppose someone sees a brother or sister in need and is able to help them. If he doesn’t take pity on them, how can the love of God be in him? 1 John 3:17 (NIRV)
We live in difficult times. The rate of divorce is skyrocketing to the point where nearly ¾ of our children live in single-parent or blended families. The ‘American Dream’ of owning a home, which used to be ‘normal’, is fast becoming a luxury. In some major cities entire housing developments sit empty because the families that once played in their streets have been displaced.
Those discouraging facts are just a few of the travesties in our own nation. They don’t begin to talk about the starvation, political unrest, human rights violations and religious persecution seen in nations around the world.
It’s not hard to find someone in need. The hard part is finding a way to help. Most of us have enough struggles of our own to contend with. We feel inadequate or unable to really offer any meaningful help that will make a difference in the world. We can become so focused on the things we can’t do that we forget about the things we can do. We see the world problems and forget about our neighbor or the kid at school that gets picked on all the time. Or the teenager who finds herself pregnant…again.
Max Lucado, in his book “He Still Moves Stones”, tells the story of Leo Tolstoy, a great Russian writer. It seems Tolstoy was walking down the street one day and saw a beggar. Tolstoy was moved to give the man something but upon looking through his pockets found he had nothing to give the man. He reached out and put his hand on the man’s shoulder and said “Brother, I’m so sorry but I have nothing to give you.”
The beggar looked Tolstoy in the eyes. A smile crossed his face and he said, “You have given me more than I asked for, for you have called me brother.”
It doesn’t take a lot to change someone’s life, even if it’s just for a day. It may be a smile, a kind word, an encouragement. It may be choosing not to make a judgment based on the obvious. You can make a difference in your world. It doesn’t take riches or gifts or abilities. It takes love, caring and compassion. It takes realizing that you too have faults and weaknesses and, in God’s eyes, are no different than the person in the physical, spiritual or emotional gutter.
Show the love of Jesus in your world today. Show it to the person you come across who least expects it…and least deserves it. Showing the love of Jesus to others may only be a smile or a word to you, but to them it just may make their day the best day they’ve had in a long time.
PRAYER: Father God, when I look around me at all the bad stuff going on in the world I’m made aware that even in the midst of my own crisis’ I am truly blessed. I struggle with sin. I am in debt so far I may never see the light of day. I’m living under the consequences of my own failure. Still, I have something to give because I have your love within me. Show me someone today who needs your touch. Empower me with your Spirit to touch them with your love. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. Isaiah 53:4
It wasn’t enough to watch from heaven. Your car died. Your kids have just told you that they don’t believe in God. You just lost your job. You can’t sing in church anymore. It’s not that the music is bad. In fact you like the music. You just can’t sing the words anymore. They’ve become hollow syllables, empty letters, and meaningless chatter.
You’ve tried to get the feeling back. You’ve prayed. You think about reading the Bible every day. It’s hard to know if it’s your own failure that has driven you to this point, or if it’s the pain that others have inflicted on you. You’ve been scolded one too many times. You’ve been reminded once too often that you’ve failed.
“Is it worth another try?” you ask yourself as you lay on your back staring at the ceiling and hoping that sleep will come soon to give your mind some rest. The same situations keep replaying themselves over and over in your head. What if you’d made a different choice? What if he didn’t hit you that last time? What if you’d told her she couldn’t go to the party? What if…?
The loneliness and despair surround you like the darkness of your night. You hope sleep comes but fear the dawn because you know the problems will still be there and you aren’t sure where you will get the courage and strength to go one more day.
Then a still small voice comes from the dark corners of your troubled mind. It’s a verse…no a phrase really. You don’t remember where it’s from. It was part of a Sunday School lesson years ago. “I’ll never leave you or forsake you.” That was it, right. He’ll never leave. He promised to be with me…always.
As sleep finally begins to creep in the words keep reminding you, consoling you, healing you. It wasn’t enough for him to watch from heaven. It wasn’t enough for him to ‘understand’ your plight. He knew that the best way he could help you was to come to live with you.
Jesus has felt the pain of every broken relationship. He’s cried with you each time you’ve been lied to. He’s worked through the feelings you have had of failure even though he himself never failed.
That’s what grace is about. It’s about the son of God coming to earth to feel your pain. To endure your failures. To feel your loneliness. He did all of this because he loves you and desperately yearns for a relationship with you. Jesus is passionate about you! It wasn’t enough to watch with sympathy from heaven. Jesus loves you so much he came to earth to experience the pain you feel in life.
PRAYER: Dear Jesus. I don’t understand how you, as the Son of God, can feel all the feelings I feel. I don’t understand how you can love someone like me who seems to find new ways to fail every day. I don’t understand it. But I like it! Thank you for understanding me. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for loving me so much that you came to earth to show me how to live in the midst of this struggle we call life. Amen.
Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” Mark 9:35
There seems to have been an ongoing battle among Jesus’ disciples to establish a pecking order. The comparison game ran rampant. Some would argue their case based on the order in which Christ ‘chose’ them. After all, wouldn’t he pick them the way we choose teams on the playground? The most talented would surely be chosen first, and disciple number 12? Well, you know that story!
I would imagine that the fisherman in the group argued their case for supremacy based on the consistency and size of their catch. Matthew and Judas based their level of importance based on their knowledge of finances and the Roman government, The others all staked their claim to greatness on other personality traits or passion to follow Christ.
We still play the comparison game in our churches and Christian circles. We’ve become more refined, of course. Past sins, divorce and other relational issues, length of time with the master and denominational affiliation will either disqualify you, or make you more qualified, depending on your point of view.
Fact of the matter is, Jesus sets the standard for greatness pretty low. Children, livestock, women and servants were all in the same category in Jesus day. They carried no value in and of themselves. Women were valuable of course if they produced male offspring. Livestock were valuable if there were no blemishes because they were the monetary standard of the day. Children had some value because they would eventually grow up to be heirs (boys) or a way to raise yourself to a higher social level (good looking women).
Servants? Truth be told there really wasn’t a value placed on a servant. The bad ones were sold or killed or given the dirtiest jobs. The good ones were elevated until, of course, they proved themselves inadequate. There was no glamour in being a servant. Wasn’t in Jesus day, still isn’t.
Servants had no choices in life. Their sole purpose in life was to make other people happy and comfortable. Good masters may show some gratitude (to the good servants) but it certainly wasn’t necessary, or the norm. Servants generally received no praise. They were just doing their job after all. There was no Servants Union. No one to advocate for servant rights. No United Servant Code of Ethics.
Still, Jesus calls each of us to be servants in order to show His greatness to the nations. One more thing about being a servant, and this is a hard one to swallow. Being a ‘servant’ to people who we like and who are kind to us? That’s not being a servant. Servant-hood is not based on like-ability. The crabby boss? The obnoxious customer? The angry spouse? Yep. We’re called to serve them.
As Christ-followers, our question is not ‘Should I serve that person’ but, ‘How does God want me to serve that person wisely.’
PRAYER: Dear Jesus. You showed us the ultimate example of how to be a servant by reaching out to the unlovely, allowing yourself to be the object of scorn and ridicule and ultimately dying for me when I didn’t deserve it. I know your command is the same today as it was when you walked with your disciples. It’s hard being a servant in an evil world but I know that is Your desire. Empower me with Your Spirit to be the loving and wise servant You want me to be. Keep me from playing the comparison game. I’m not better or no worse than anyone else when I walk with you. Thank you for being my servant. Help me to serve others in the same way. Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 