This is my last opportunity to mention anger to you… and some of you are so mad!
Anger seethes right beneath the surface of your heart, and I am your Pastor!
Do you know what spiritual giants of days gone by would have done for you? They would have fought in prayer. They would have preached in tears. They would see you as children, alone and without hope against the power of resentment and bitterness. They would have fought through both poverty and riches to find you whole. I have not yet begun to embarrass myself in proportion to how they threw themselves on their knees that their people might find release from Satan’s grip. Oh, wretched pathetic servant of Christ, I have not yet begun to lose even one thing for the blindness of our friends that are too busy to change. They limp along. They improve here a little, there a new hiding, here, again a new and moderate cover-up of civility. But for God’s sake they aren’t different!
If I had one word to offer someone on anger it wouldn’t be the mechanism of human anger… You know how it works. You want some hidden thing. You don’t get it so you take it out on the people around you. You desire, you demand, when you don’t get it, you judge those who keep you from your desire. Then you punish. You punish others, yourself, even God.
Nope, that is not what I’d leave you with. I’d leave you with this one thing: God loves you so much that He snorted in rage. He turned the full force of wrath on himself. He did that for you. All the anger that God had against the Sin that sought to abduct His children, He turned on Christ. God came against evil with a vengeance, to get you back.
Anger is the expression of love to protect. And God would not quit with sword, nor spear, nor thunder, nor flame because from before the foundation of the world He chose to call you His child. Nothing you can ever do would change that. He is so happy to have won you! Don’t ever disregard anger. Don’t forget, God elected to burn white hot to go and get you. He loves you more than you can possibly imagine. Because of Him, I do too.
Ted
