Anger

A few days ago I started with a new topic for Bible study. I have been allowing myself to get angry when people drive badly around me, and lately people have been driving very badly ESPECIALLY around me.

I picked up a book and the topic of anger caught my attention, while I work on this I will be posting portions of my progress. And at the end I hope to put up a slideshow or Word document with the whole thing.

Today I want to share a few quotes with you on anger. (I collect quotes and book of quotes by the way)

• Every moment you are angry, you loose a minute of happiness.

• When we give others a “piece of our mind”, we have no “peace of mind left.”

• Hatred is self punishment.

• Those who look for opportunities to hate, miss many opportunities to love.

• Anger manages everything badly.

• People who fly into a rage, always make a bad landing.

• No matter how long you nurse a grudge it won’t get better.

Keep standing!

Introduction:

Starting strong is important, we make New Years' resolutions on 1 January - determined to make this a better year, to better our lives and the lives of our families and friends.

But any seasoned athlete will tell you that starting out with good intentions is not good enough. Starting out is "easy" compared to the endurance needed during the difficult times.

Each journey has a beginning, a middle and an end. If you decide to run a 100 mile marathon you will need to train continuously. Changing your diet and making a considerable amount of sacrifices. Starting out right, then spending 4 years on the cough will not help you to win the race.

We are talking about apathy, growing tired, giving up too soon.

Some of us seem to suffer from a short attention span, or A.D.D. we seem so distractable. So easy for us to change course... 

Lost the plot

How many people have started down a path, then years later found that they have changed. They started out with the best of intentions, with integrity and then somewhere along the way they lost it.

Newsboys sing a song called, “It's all who you know” and another called, “Lost the plot.” One of the mishaps is of an expedition team that lost direction. “For the one of direction the huskies went off course - took some time to free ‘em, now their on display inside a British museum.” Sometimes even a small deviation, can make a big difference. Consider a luxury cruise liner; if it deviates only 10 degrees off course it will be about 80 km off course after a 500 km journey.

In “Lost the plot” they sing of an apathetic person, someone who is now too tired to get something from the fridge. They make a lot of comparisons of people who started well, and now:

• too selfish and self centred to care about others
• cannot follow God any more
• forgotten their first love
• can't hear God's voice any more
• forgot what God did for them

What am I saying? We need to stay strong! It’s May and half the year is almost behind us. For some of us, half our lives are behind us. Have we started out strong? More importantly, have we stayed strong?

A marriage starts with a wedding, a celebration of two people who have sworn to stay together forever. Yet how many marriages don't last? You can't get married today and in 20 years time everything is fine – in spite of the fact that you have never again said “I love you” to your wife or done anything special for her. It simply does not work that way. Relationships are either built and made stronger OR they deteriorate!

With respect I would like to refer to a few people from the Bible. I say with respect, because none of us are perfect either - and it is easier for us to look back at them, then for us to have lived through what they did and have done a better job.

• Solomon built the temple, yet he introduced idolatry for his many wives years later.
• Samson was strong and made quite an impression, yet he died blind with tons of rubble falling on him.
• Judas started out as a disciple of Jesus, yet he died having betrayed Him.

Paul has a lot to say on the subject:

Paul is a man who travelled a lot, during a time when long journey's where not easy. He was ship wrecked, stoned to death and imprisoned. Do you think he got tired or maybe even discouraged?

1 Corinthians 10:12 “Even if you think you can stand up to temptation, be careful not to fall.” CEV

This is a warning to those of us who feel we are better than others. We look down on them because of what they have done, thinking “we are better than that; we would never do that.”

1 Corinthians 15:58 “My dear friends, stand firm and don't be shaken. Always keep busy working for the Lord. You know that everything you do for him is worthwhile.” CEV

2 Corinthians 1:21 “And so God makes it possible for you and us to stand firmly together with Christ. God is also the one who chose us” CEV

Ephesians 3:17 “and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. Stand firm and be deeply rooted in his love.” CEV

The key is to be rooted in Christ's love. What happens to a tree that is not rooted? It will die. (Cross reference with Psalm 1)

Hebrews 12:12 “Now stand up straight! Stop your knees from shaking” CEV

At times we are tempted to shrink back in fear, but Paul wants to encourage us here – don't loose hope! 

Closing words:

Staying strong takes effort and hard work. Without exercise muscles fade. To stay strong we need to continually make time for prayer, Bible study and contemplation. God wants to speak to us, wants to work through us, but sometimes our attention is on other things and we are too distracted to hear His voice... 

Does food bring us closer to God?

1 Corinthians 8:8 “But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, no better if we do.” NIV

Paul is writing to the Corinthian Church about food sacrificed to idols. He stresses here that food does not bring us close to God. This leads me to the question, what does?

In the Old Testament there are many verses on what food was “ceremonially unclean” and what food for fit for consumption by God’s people. Jesus talks about food and the fruit that our lives produce:

Matthew 12:33-34 "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” CEV

How amazing is God! The things that fill our hearts and flood out of our mouths show if we are unclean or not. Not whether you prefer bacon to chicken sausage!

I once attended a lecture on food, the pastor told us about the conditions during the Old Testament. Of how people would cook the meat before eating it, probably on a small fire. Now pork is deadly if not cooked until well done. Can you see how God was protecting them from sickness and disease by telling them not to eat it? Another meat that was prohibited is rabbit, these animals can carry parasites that can be transmitted to you even after the meat has been cooked. They embed themselves in your muscles and cause major problems.

Know this, God never told us to not do something without a very good reason. Do not murder, do not lie, do not commit adultery. These are all commands where if you brake them, someone (including you) gets hurt. God does not want to spoil your fun by making rules that are impossible to live by, spoiling your breakfast by prohibiting you from eating bacon or pork bangers, God has the best in store for us and He wants only the best for us. Naturally, He would tell us to stay away from things that would hurt us.

Jeremiah 7:23 “But I commanded them this thing, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people; and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you.” MKJV

God has always wanted us to be His people. In the Garden of Eden, the very first sin that was committed was the sin of disobedience. God said, “You shall not”, and they were disobedient to Him and His command.

Jesus talks about the importance of sacrifices. There were many sacrifices listed in the Old Testament. These were very important, but there is something more important than rituals:

Matthew 12:7 “Don't you know what the Scriptures mean when they say, "Instead of offering sacrifices to me, I want you to be merciful to others?" If you knew what this means, you would not condemn these innocent disciples of mine.” CEV

Luke 11:42  "But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” CEV

Tithing is one of the most important rituals that we have as Christians. We give of our income so that the church and the people who work there can be provided for. But the Pharisees Jesus mentions tithe to be seen, with the wrong motives. Some things they esteemed as important (like doing things to be seen), while others (like justice and the love of God) took a back seat and were considered less important.

GOD WANTS YOUR HEART! He is not satisfied with you doing the right thing, like going to Church, tithing, helping others, etc. if your motives are all wrong.

Jeremiah 31:33 “but this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel: After those days, says Jehovah, I will put My Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” MKJV

Why does God want to put anything in your heart? Because He cares what is in it! God wants us to do the right things, for the right reasons! We are not to pretend to be Christians – we are to live what God has made us to be. God does not want us to pretend to be anything. If you are not doing things for the right reasons, then stop. Get your motives right and then continue.

Hebrews 6:1 mentions dead works. One of the meanings for this is something which has no reward. Jesus spoke of the Pharisees again in Matthew 6:1-4, saying that people who do things to be seen have already received their reward. What have they received? Recognition from people and a feeling of self righteousness. This is all you will get when you do things to be seen. God does not want us to live like this.

The apostle James has this to say:

James 2:20 “But will you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” MKJV

If faith that does not lead to works is dead, then works that do not originate from faith are also dead. It is not about being seen as someone who always attended church services or who donates thousands to the church every time they ask for money.

What God is looking at is what you are doing and why you are doing it. Does God do anything for us with ulterior motives? A scary question indeed. 1 John 4:16 says that God is love, not that God has love or feels love, but that God is indeed love. God is motivated by love, sent His Son Jesus because He loved us (John 3:16). I really hope that you get what I am saying here. God is motivated by love, not by hatred, spite or malice. God wants us to be motivated by His love as well. It’s a supernatural love, so we cannot produce it by ourselves, but we can ask Him to fill our hearts with His love so that we may love others as He loves us.

Do not despire small beginnings - PART 5

In Closing:

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” ESV

You might be very anxious to have God’s plans for you fulfilled. Know that He is too! He wants His plans in you to be fulfilled even more than you do. Plans take time to come into fulfillment, plans take time to be worked out and plans by their very nature are long term. God has long term plans for us. To get where He wants us to be we need to follow Him daily. 

Most things worth doing, take more than a day's preparation to be able to do them right! 

We need to take hold of Jesus’ hand and let Him lead us every day.

Do not despire small beginnings - PART 4

Father's >> Young men >> children.

What a privilege we have to be able to assist others and to help them grow in their walk with God! People grow at different paces, but we all can reach out to someone close to us and help them in some way or another.

1 Corinthians 8:1 “In your letter you asked me about food offered to idols. All of us know something about this subject. But knowledge makes us proud of ourselves, while love makes us helpful to others.” CEV

We must help others in love, not in a way that they feel that we look down on them.

Examples of growth:

God is busy working in our lives and we need to stay the course. We don’t start out great, but God has great plans for our lives. The foundation forming years are our most important as everything will rest on the foundations we have in our lives. God knows what you can handle right now. If He gives you more than you can handle it will break you, so He is patient and gives you more when you are ready, when you have matured a bit more.

Abram was a husband to a barren wife, but God made great promises to him. He changed his name to Abraham (meaning father of a multitude) God promises Him that all nations will be blessed through him (Genesis 12:3). He starts our without a child, and for years he trusts God to give him an inheritance, today Abraham is the father of two great nations with so many children that it is difficult to count them all, BUT HE DID NOT START OUT THAT WAY. He was a nomad, traveling around, he did not start out owning even an inch of property. God blessed and increased him to what we see today.

When we look at ourselves we may think of the things that others have said about us, “you are just like your father”, “you will never amount to anything”, “you are useless”. But know that that is not the way that God looks at you or me.

Do not despire small beginnings - PART 3

A tree needs to be a certain age before it will bear fruit as well, you can’t expect fruit from a 6 month old peach tree it just does not happen that way.

Genesis 8:22 “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." ESV

There is no quick fix, or instant solution when a peach tree is bare. Today we have microwaves, 2 minute noodles and instant coffee, but the things of God's Spirit take time.

Back to us, our spirits are reborn when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour and we start a wonderful journey. God starts building certain things into our lives and we start maturing, ie. Getting ready to bear fruit.

This church had small beginnings, but God has given great words of prophecy that this church would be a great big church. How does that happen? One person at a time! How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!

Helping others grow:

All of us are on different levels, we are not to look down on those below us or be jealous of those above us. John Maxwell says that we are to have many mentors and that one can learn at least one thing from every person you meet.

So as we grow we have the opportunity to help others to grow to where we are.

1 John 2:12-14

"12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. 13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. 14 I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one." ESV

Do not despire small beginnings - PART 2

Why does God start us out small?

In Matthew 25:15 Jesus starts to tell the story of the workers who received 5, 2 and 1 talents respectively. The Message Bible says that they were entrusted with money “according to their ability”.

Why if God has such grand plans for us do we need to start small? God is busy growing and developing our character so that we can cope with more! If you promise to give your son or daughter a car and you give it to them when they are 10 years old what will happen? Exactly! You start them out with a bicycle, etc. and as they grow older and their abilities grow you can give them a car when they are capable of driving it safely.

God does the same with us. He wants to give us everything He has promised, but it will harm us to receive these things too soon. Do you understand what I am saying? Does this make sense? God promises to give you a million Rand, but do you know how to run that kind of finances? Not if you are used to earning R100 a week, no. So God builds you until you are ready to do it.

We also need to be faithful, God tests our faithfulness.

How do we grow?

Psalm 1:3 “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” ESV

Galatians 5:22-23 lists the fruit of the Spirit.

Like the tree planted by living waters, bearing fruit takes time. When a tree wants to have fruit it does not pick up the phone and order from Pick ‘n Pay. First the tree blossoms, producing hundreds of beautiful flowers. This is the promise of fruit to come. A humble bee pollinates the flowers on the tree, which develop into small fruit. The fruit grows and ripens and only then is the tree full of ripe fruit. Most trees bear fruit only once a year as this process takes time.