Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Be Angry and sin not

10:55 PM by Christi Bowman

This evening my friend shared with us some verses God laid on her heart. My friend is facing a tough situation and she often finds herself angry as she navigates through it. She read Job 1:13-22. In those few verses we see the decimation of Job's world as he knows it as one slave after another comes into the presence of Job to tell him that they were the only ones to escape the devastation they each saw. The one verse that struck me in the passage from Job was Job 1:22

In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

God often sends me down a path with scripture to show me something and it often starts with one verse. I struggle with anger. I am learning to not take it out on others or blame anyone, still I do not like the angry feelings that well up inside of me and stick around. From Job 1:22 God brought to mind Ephesians 4:26:

Be angry and do not sin.

It seemed like God was telling me that if you do not charge God with wrong doing in your anger than you do not sin when you are angry. I used to blame God for the bad stuff in my life all the time. I had this view that if He did truly love me the way the Bible says He does, that He would step in and miraculously altar my situation. When God would fail to act, in my opinion, I wanted to discount everything the Bible said. After Ephesians 4:26 God took me to Chronicles 28:22-25:

In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the LORD—this same King Ahaz. 23For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him and said, "Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me." But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel. 24And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and he shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and he made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. 25In every city of Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods, provoking to anger the LORD, the God of his fathers.

In these verses God showed me what people who blame Him for wrong doing in their anger do. In times of distress people look to tangible gods to soothe them, when they are defeated they blame God and they shut the door of their heart and God gets angry. After 2 Chronicles 28 God took me to 2 Chronicles 7:19-20

"But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight,

In these verses God pointed out to me what the end result is of accusing God of wrong doing when you are angry. I have been there before. After 2 Chronicles 7:19-20, God brought Psalm 37:25 to mind:

I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken

With this verse God took me in a new direction...He said if you stay faithful and avoid accusing me of wrong doing and shaking your fist at me I will see you as righteous and I will not cast you out of my sight, instead I will make sure you are never forsaken...you just have to trust me.

And then God ended this journey through the Bible in Matthew 19:28-30:

Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. 30But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

In these verses He said to me and even if life doesn't turn out the way you think it should, that does not mean I am not sovereign. Your life here is but a blip on the map of eternity, and if you give up anything for me, and you stay faithful you will get it all back in the new world.

Wow, what a perspective.

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