Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Weekend Speaker Redmond - Pastor Ben Sigman

Theme:  Beyond: Next Level Living, Week One - Anger

Read: Proverbs 4:23; Mark 7:20-23; Galatians 4:6; Galatians 5:16-26

Think: Pastor Ben started a new series on Next Level Living this past weekend with a teaching on How to Handle Anger.  The verse that spoke to me immediately was Proverbs 4:23 “guard your heart”. The sin of anger is the destruction it does when it is spoken (see Mark 7:20-23). But the enigma is that Mark says out of the heart evil thoughts come and Galatians 4:6 says God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

Galatians 5:16-26 talks about this constant war between the two forces in our heart: our evil nature and the Spirit of God. So, this means that when anger rises up and seeks to destroy someone, it is not enough to force a smile and restrain ourself while seething inside. At the instant we begin to feel angry, we must deal with our heart.

I interpret the heart issue as whichever the heart is the most full of, God’s Spirit or my evil nature, is what will get spilled out when my life gets jostled. So how do I guard my heart? I think by being very careful what I fill it with. The more I worship the Lord or listen to worship music, the more I pray and listen to God’s voice, the more of His Word I hide there, the better chance that what spills out of my mouth is Him and not me.

The Mayo Clinic defines anger management as: “a process of learning to recognize signs that you're becoming angry, and taking action to calm down and deal with the situation in a positive way. Anger management doesn't try to keep you from feeling anger or encourage you to hold it in. Anger is a normal, healthy emotion when you know how to express it appropriately. Anger management is about learning how to do this.” In the Galatians 5 passage, the fruit of the Spirit is listed: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I think if we learned how to have more of these fruit in our life we’d have a Godly anger management plan.

Do: List the things you do each day to fill your heart and feed your spirit with Godly things. List the things you do each day to fill your heart and feed your nature with things that promote strife, bitterness and temptation. Find ways you can tip the scale toward Godly things each day.

Pray:  Father, You made me and You know me. Search my heart today and help me to fill and feed it Your words, Your fruit and Your ways, in Jesus name, Amen.

The eDevotional is written each week by a team of volunteers from Timberlake Church.