by David Brenneman
Our sin nature isn't on the side of God in our lives. Many times we fuel the fire by our giving in to temptation. Many times we just don't fight. Not everything we face in life that's negative is the fault of Satan.
We choose to use our temper. We choose to hate. We choose to engage in outbursts of anger. We choose and we can choose a still better way.
When we react in anger or other negative emotional outbursts...are we aiding the enemy of Christ? Are we really pursuing Christ's interests in these times or are we helping the Devil to divide what God's joined together?
We are either out to live life with the interests of God or of ourselves. We either live for Christ or we aren't.
We can point fingers, cast blame, but we choose to justify our actions in spite of the fact that the Spirit knows the truth.
We can lie to ourselves, and we do, or we lie to God. Using religious sounding words doesn't gain us any favor in disobeying God. We can never, ever, justify our disobeying the Word of God.
The truth will haunt you. The Truth will bear witness against your heart.
Oh for a time it might feeeeel like you're on the right track. But the truth is your feelings will betray you. Adam and Eve were betrayed by feelings. King David was betrayed by feelings over Bathsheba. Solomon was betrayed by feelings concerning his thousands of wives. Judas was betrayed by feelings and it cost him his life. If Paul followed his feelings most of the New Testament wouldn't have been written.
When we respond in anger in any way, shape or form, we are in danger of crossing the line and are risking putting ourselves in the place of God.
What does it say when even angels argued with angels? "But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”" Jude 1:9.
We are not in the place of God to decide things that are His to decide. This isn't to say we are "not to judge". We are to judge with righteous judgment. We are to be fruit inspectors. To know people by their fruits. We are to take the log out of our own eyes before we try to remove the speck out of a brother's or sister's eye.
We are NOT to give aide and comfort to the enemy of God.
We are not to try to separate what God joins together. We all can read the 10 Commandments. We all can read the words of Jesus "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and spirit. Love your neighbor as yourself."
We can read of read in 1 Corinthians 13, the "love" chapter of what God says is love. When we step outside of these reminders we step into the unrighteous life. We begin traveling down the selfish life. Oh we will argue and defend our self-righteous position. But our position will be compared to the righteousness of God. It will not stand.
We cannot love God and hate our neighbor. We cannot love God and participate in the deeds of darkness.
We cannot say we love God, love Jesus, and yet continue in reacting to others as though the love of Christ were not in us.
We are destroying rather than building up not only those that we interact with, but are persuading others to give up on a right relationship with Jesus.
We destroy our own witness by putting self first.
We are warned in numerous places to be on the alert. To remember we are at war. The battlefield is not in this flesh and blood world. It's within. We are to be soldiers of the cross of Jesus Christ. We are not to put self above serving God's purpose and will for you and I.
We can justify our choices and actions till the end of time, but, we WILL have to explain to Jesus why we broke up relationships that He brought together. We will have to explain why we chose a different path than the one He put us on.
We are NOT going to be in a position to understand everything because we are not God. So we must trust and obey.
We must be careful to not to live life that is causing the name of Jesus Christ to be thought of in any way that's unholy.
We must not put self above what the Spirit teaches us to be doing. There's no good excuse or reason to put self first.
We may be challenged beyond ourselves but we are not living life for ourselves.
We will be given more than we can handle because we need to grow in Christ.
We need to rely on Christ. We need the difficulties in life to show ourselves and others the power of Christ in us.
If we are breaking up Godly relationships, we are not obeying the will of God for us in Christ Jesus.
If we are pursuing careers as the world says we ought to, we aren't following Christ. There's only two ways to live in this world. God's way, through God's Word, or through the world's way, through its words.
One way leads to judgment one does not.
We are to take the words of Jesus to heart. The warnings to Timothy are the same warnings to us.
Love as we have been loved by Christ Jesus.
Forgive as we have been forgiven by Christ Jesus.
All NASB 1995 and NASB Scripture Excerpts used by permission. Lockman Foundation
No comments:
Post a Comment