Monday, May 6, 2013

Cost of Discipleship Pt 55 - Anger



Chapter 9 - The Brother… continued

Mat 5:21  Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
Mat 5:22  But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Mat 5:23  Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Mat 5:24  Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Mat 5:25  Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Mat 5:26  Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

Bonhoeffer-  'Anger is always an attack on the brother's life, for it refuses to let him live and aims at his destruction. Jesus will not accept the common distinction between righteous indignation and unjustifiable anger. The disciple must be entirely innocent of anger, because anger is an offence against both God and his neighbor. Every idle word which we think so little of betrays our lack of respect for our neighbor, and shows that we place ourselves on a pinnacle above him and value our own lives higher than his. The anger word is a blow struck at our brother, a stab at his heart: it seeks to hit, to hurt and to destroy. A deliberate insult is even worse, for we are then openly disgracing our brother in the eyes of the world, and causing others to despise him. With our hearts burning with hatred, we seek to annihilate his moral and material existence. We are passing judgment on him, and that is murder. And the murderer will himself be judged.'

My thoughts-

Righteous indignation, unjustifiable anger.

Even as I was copying that paragraph above I was thinking about the last time I was angry with 'my brother' (meaning anyone).  As I thought about it and knew it was just earlier today I was angry over something- some perceived slight by someone, and because it was anger at a slight it was so easy for me to believe it was justifiable anger, it was righteous indignation-- but was it?

We know that Christ became very angry with the moneychangers in the temple- and obviously His anger wasn't a sin.   We know that God can become angry and not sin.

Exo_4:14  And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart.

Moses became angry and sinned not.

Exo_32:19  And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.

We know this as well-

Psa_103:8  The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

Now let's look at some of the Proverbs dealing with anger-

Pro_15:1  A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

Pro_15:18  A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.

Pro_16:32  He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.

And something from Ecclesiastes-

Ecc_7:9  Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.

Clearly anger is NOT a good thing for us.

We scarcely give what we call righteous indignation a second glance. We join with others being angry when we perceive they have a right to that anger.

Clearly we are NOT to embrace anger, that it's dangerous, not harmless as some like to believe.

The Bible has more to say --

Eph_4:26  Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath

Eph 4:31  Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
Eph 4:32  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Rom 12:17  Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
Rom 12:18  If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
Rom 12:19  Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Rom 12:20  Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Rom 12:21  Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Jas 1:19  Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
Jas 1:20  For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

*******

Bonhoeffer- 'Every idle word which we think so little of betrays our lack of respect for our neighbor, and shows that we place ourselves on a pinnacle above him and value our own lives higher than his.'

My thoughts-

So incredibly true.

We have such arrogance in us! We believe we are so incredibly important that we need NOT suffer in any way!  We not only belief that, we believe that we should NEVER be mistreated verbally or mentally, in any way. And truthfully in the world to come, in that PERFECT world we won't undergo any mistreatment. We long for this world and yet, we know that this is not the world where this will take place. This is the world where our perfectly innocent Savior suffered unimaginably.

Not only did our Savior suffer horrors we can't imagine- Him in His innocence- but He did so in SILENCE.

SILENCE!

There was a reason our Savior did NOT cry out and rage against His ill treatment. There is a reason for His stoic behavior in face of His torture. It was an EXAMPLE for US!

Yet we get upset at the littlest of irritations.

How can we? 

And not only how can we, how can we justify that irritation?

How?

We rage and war against the tiniest offense committed against us and Satan is right there in all his horrific , insidious evil urging us on to feel the anger, to feed the anger, to point that anger against any and all who we believe deserve it-- when in truth NONE deserve it!  None!  Even if they torture us for no reason at all, they do not deserve our anger. Our anger immediately has us putting ourselves above them, and above our Savior. If He could suffer undeservedly and not even complain, we have NO right to believe  that we have any right a all to complain. We deserve a lot of our treatment just because we are such incredible sinners, it is Satan who wants us to believe otherwise. Satan wants us to be SELF-RIGHTEOUS. Satan wants us to believe we don't deserve any thing bad happening to us, and we have to fight against it, rail against it, get angrier, and more angrier at the injustice. 

Please LORD, help us to understand! Help us to seek YOU and YOUR example as we live our lives and Satan wars against us.  As You prayed to the Father, please, keep us from evil!


All in YOUR LOVE! ALWAYS LORD, IN YOUR LOVE!

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