Once Again God

Once again, I had to deal with the anger that resides inside me. Once again, after my anger was spent by unloading on someone I love,  I had to deal with the guilt for allowing myself to explode.  Once again, I fell before the Lord asking Him to help me with my anger.

Thank God,  He is a,  "once again" God, for His forgiveness was there, ready for me to accept it and open myself up for learning more about the root of this anger I deal with.

It would be easier to write about all the wrong that has been done to me and get you on my side.  I have a friend that I don't  open up to much because she tend to remind me I have been through a lot as if I deserve to feel the way I do.  That kind of reasoning is no help if I want to be like Jesus. He was never self righteous.  To be honest that is exactly what is the root of my anger.

I was always applauded at the story  in Matthew 18 about the unmerciful servant, a guy who owed the king millions of dollars. The king orders him to be sold with his wife and kids and everything he owns, to pay back his debt.

The servant pleads with the king and the king has pity and lets him go, debt free.

What came next is what angers me.  This servant in turns will not forgive someone else  who owed  him money.  It was a small amount of money owed to him and he had just been forgiven a huge debt he owed by the king.

 Peter ask Jesus, how many times do we need to forgive, would seven times be enough?

Brant Hansen who wrote the book, Un-Offendable tells it this way,  "Jesus says to Peter,   not even close, and then lets us know that, before God, we are in far deeper debt that anyone needing forgiveness from us. In that story, we are not, "just guilty" as the one whom we need to forgive.  We're worse.

The quote continues, If I get to determine whether my anger is righteous or not, I'm in trouble. So are you. The reason: we can't trust ourselves.

Trusting in yourself sounds like a perfectly normal things to do.  Problem is, for the believer, it isn't biblical at all.  We are deceptive to the core.  Jer. 17:9 ESV, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick: who can understand it?  

End of quote: My thoughts:  When self righteous is reigning we are not trusting God, We are afraid he will not mete out justice, that people won't get what they deserve.

Hansen quotes: So perhaps our entitlement to anger is our little way of making sure some measure of justice is served.

Jesus wants to disrupt this kind of thinking.  Remember the women caught in adulteress, how the men wanted to stone her. I mean, she was guilty,  and they believed, no doubt, they were doing the right thing. they were carrying out God's justice, they thought. I love the way Hansen paraphrases what Jesus said to them,  "You can't do this, because you're all just as guilty. Every single one of you.

Another Hanson quote, Anger makes me think I have a right to hold the stone. I may not throw it, but I'll hold on to it, since the other person really did do that horrible things.  Jesus flipped their story upside down. And since He wants to do this for us, I say we let Him.  When you do, you'll find you have no standing to hold on to anger, ever.  Truth is, we want Jesus to leave our self righteousness intact.  He wants to smash it.

Well, by now you should have figured out where this post came from.  From the heart of a self righteous women who wants to go deeper with God.  God is opening up doors in my heart that I have let Him in before but as soon as the light got too bright I would shut it again.

Once again, He is answering my prayer and giving me what I ask for.  Take me deep, was my prayer, take me deep.  Good thing He is my life line or I would drown in defeat and guilt.  

I hope you are not one who thinks I am being too hard on myself, trust me I am not.  In no way am I getting what I deserve.  I deserve hell, He bought and paid for heaven. Not only that when I fail here on earth, He does not take His love, forgiveness, strength and so much more away.  

Amen

Amen

Amen