Attacking Your Anger

In considering the tools available to us for attacking anger, I feel pressed to "put you in remembrance" of one of my favorite tools - drawing your anger line - the line you are determined not to cross regardless of who or what provokes you.

We all have drawn a line - that which we feel is justifiable when we are pushed enough.  For some, but few, it is murder.  When provoked enough, some people feel that murder is justified.  For some it is physical harm; some verbal abuse or yelling, some retribution, some the silent treatment.  What is yours?  Where have you drawn the line?

Here's God's line:

Ephesians. 4:29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. 

 Matthew 5:44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 

If your anger line crosses the lines set by our Lord, then you are "out of line".  Choose His ways.  They will never disappoint.  Loving others when they seemingly don't deserve it reveals strength, not weakness. We can only love like that with God's strength.  

As a believer, you have committed your life to Him.  Commit your line to Him too.
   

The Cost of Discipleship

Text:  Matthew 8:16-23

The call to discipleship is the call to follow Jesus.  That requires a lot of moving.  Jesus is always up to something.  Being reminded of that coupled with the statement - "between the altar and the door", I found myself seeing the choices set before me, daily, even hourly to decide whether I will choose the altar or the door.  As the pastor's wife, I sit in the second row, figuratively closer to the altar than just about everyone else in church.  But, the power is AT the altar, not being near it.   Sitting in the second row makes me no more a beneficiary of the power of the altar, than the person sitting in the back row.  

We all must come to the altar... if we are to be followers.  Followers can't sit ANYWHERE between the altar and the door.  

I considered the scribe who so boldly announced to Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go.  Scribes were the Bible experts.  They knew it well.  If Jesus had failed to follow the law in just one point, I don't think this scribe would have wanted to follow Jesus.  In Jesus, this scribe had found the real thing. But, scribes were used to the niceties of life.  So, in verse 20, Jesus reminded him that following Him could mean walking away from those things.  The next disciple in the story wanted to take care of the demands and cares of this life first.  So, in verse 22, Jesus challenged him.

We don't know how either of these men responded.  Maybe, because I have a natural tendency to be like the scribe, I'd like to think the scribe took Jesus up on His offer.  If the Word of God was important to this scribe, how much more would be the One who was able to follow it and make it real?

Hopefully, we were all challenged this morning.  Hopefully, the Lord spoke to us in that area that tends to keep us from following Him (in whatever turns He takes).  And, hopefully, we will choose the altar.  The door is a bad option.   So, is any point between the door and the altar.  

And when Jesus saw great multitudes around Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. (verse 18)

Now, when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.  (verse 23)

In between those two verses is a call  - Follow Me and a challenge that reminds us that, when Jesus calls, He knows exactly the demands and priorities of our lives. Yet, He calls us anyway.  Will we walk away like the rich young ruler of another story?  Or will we choose to get in the boat like the disciples of verse 23?

As we can read in the next verses, getting in the boat did not enable them to avoid the storms of life.  But it did enable them to be eye witnesses of God's work and His protection in the storm.    We discover that at the altar.