SEPTEMBER 8 "DOES GOD NEED ANGER MANAGEMENT CLASSES?"
IF you were hoping to find words of love, comfort and encouragement today in your One Year reading, you may want to look again...TOMORROW. You will not find much of that in today's reading. If you were to have picked up the One Year Bible for the first time today, you would quickly put it down and think to yourself, "wow, this God sure is an angry and threatening God". And of course in some people's unrealistic eyes, God should never be angry. The question is...."is God angry, does God need anger management classes?" According to Isaiah, Jehovah is very ticked off. Paul seems like an angry and frustrated man in the Corinthian Letter and again in Psalms God seems to be angry and threatening. What on earth is gong on here???
You ever have days when anybody who crosses your path that day is going to feel your wrath? Is it new wrath they are going to feel that day or is it anger that you have been storing up for some time? I have to admit some days I just wake up cranky and vexed and those will be the days that I let people know what I think, especially my children. They will perceive that all of a sudden I have changed, what was permissible one day is now not permissible. Well, it's not that it was ever permissible, it annoyed me and upset me the other day, the other week, the other month etc...etc...I just did not say anything at that point. In our text God eludes to the fact that he has been watching these people for some time and the anger and frustration has been brewing. Our children will wonder, "what's wrong with mom, what's wrong with dad?" Well, nothing really, it's just mom and/or dad have had enough.
Is God angry, of course He is, we would be trying to conceal the truth to admit otherwise. He's tired and vexed with their behavior. He has watched them do their religious duties and sacrifices for so long and now He is going to speak, although up until now He has kept silent. "I cannot bear your evil assemblies, your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates", says The Lord. My kids always want me to be happy and pleasant and never to be harsh or stern, regardless of their attitudes or behavior. They want to live as they want, be disobedient, disrespectful, smart mouthed, sinful and yet mom or dad should never get angry and of course, we as God's children treat God the same way. We want to live disobedient lives and expect God to always be this a loving and smiley God. And he is, to show anger towards another does not negate our love. Many people in "anger management classes have been set up, so to speak. It is the people around them that have driven them into that place. Yes they are angry, but for many valid reasons. It's like the wreck less driver who causes an accident, but yet drivers on totally oblivious to him the damage and wreck he has left behind him. I am not taking responsibility away from the individual to control himself, after all, "self control" is one of the fruits of the spirit we should possess, but that being said, some people to seriously drive us to be angry. Do we let it out everyday, do we let them have it every day...NO, but there will be those days that they will hear an earful. The bible says, "be angry and sin not". Anger is unavoidable and depending on the people that surround us can often determine the amount of anger we have to deal with on a daily basis
Today is God's day to let us have it. Today, from O.T. to Psalms to N.T. we are reading about a God and a man (Paul) that are showing some signs of anger and in both cases it is people, that are the source of their anger. Paul is certainly not character flawed and obviously neither is God. Neither of them needs "anger management classes" (as some might suggest) they just need people who claim to be God's children to behave accordingly so. Nobody here is asking for perfection, just simple, common courtesies, Godly and ethical behavior is all that is being asked. We as parents are not asking our children to be perfect, we are just asking for some common courtesies, some respect towards authority, towards those that could "wipe them out" (so to speak) and some obedience. The irreverence to the very God that gives us air to breath, this contempt for parents who feed and clothe their children even before themselves is totally inexcusable and some days Parents will vent and some days God will vent. Allow God his day to vent, does he not have the right? Yes God is love and his love is demonstrated to us by allowing us to see how frustrated he is with humanity, but yet, his love is demonstrated towards us that he does not wipe us out as he once did. His love is demonstrated towards us that he does not "kill us" in our sin and actually gives people like you and I a chance to repent, be forgiven and have eternal life. Yes God is angry, but it's anger in check, it's anger enveloped in a love that is constantly reaching out towards us and yet constantly being rejected and abused. It's an anger that at the end of the day has a plea....and that plea is not, "I'm going to kill you" but rather "come now, let us reason together". God no matter how anger is always wanting to reason and work things out. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow"...He is always wanting to forgive us and help us move on towards a blessed life. God's anger stems from the same anger we have towards our children. We have so much to offer, so much love to give them, but their attitudes and disobedience causes them to rob themselves of the blessing we are wanting to bestow on their lives and perhaps, this is the most frustrating part of all about being a parent and perhaps the most frustrating part of being God, ie: having so much to give, so much love to lavish but an inability to give because of the decisions of our children. Is anger a sin? No it is not, it is a natural, God given emotion that often times is very justified and warranted, God simply says, "be angry....and sin not". The question today is not "Does God need anger management classes" or "why is God so angry" but rather "am I the source of any of God's anger or frustration or anybody else's for that matter?"
You ever have days when anybody who crosses your path that day is going to feel your wrath? Is it new wrath they are going to feel that day or is it anger that you have been storing up for some time? I have to admit some days I just wake up cranky and vexed and those will be the days that I let people know what I think, especially my children. They will perceive that all of a sudden I have changed, what was permissible one day is now not permissible. Well, it's not that it was ever permissible, it annoyed me and upset me the other day, the other week, the other month etc...etc...I just did not say anything at that point. In our text God eludes to the fact that he has been watching these people for some time and the anger and frustration has been brewing. Our children will wonder, "what's wrong with mom, what's wrong with dad?" Well, nothing really, it's just mom and/or dad have had enough.
Is God angry, of course He is, we would be trying to conceal the truth to admit otherwise. He's tired and vexed with their behavior. He has watched them do their religious duties and sacrifices for so long and now He is going to speak, although up until now He has kept silent. "I cannot bear your evil assemblies, your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates", says The Lord. My kids always want me to be happy and pleasant and never to be harsh or stern, regardless of their attitudes or behavior. They want to live as they want, be disobedient, disrespectful, smart mouthed, sinful and yet mom or dad should never get angry and of course, we as God's children treat God the same way. We want to live disobedient lives and expect God to always be this a loving and smiley God. And he is, to show anger towards another does not negate our love. Many people in "anger management classes have been set up, so to speak. It is the people around them that have driven them into that place. Yes they are angry, but for many valid reasons. It's like the wreck less driver who causes an accident, but yet drivers on totally oblivious to him the damage and wreck he has left behind him. I am not taking responsibility away from the individual to control himself, after all, "self control" is one of the fruits of the spirit we should possess, but that being said, some people to seriously drive us to be angry. Do we let it out everyday, do we let them have it every day...NO, but there will be those days that they will hear an earful. The bible says, "be angry and sin not". Anger is unavoidable and depending on the people that surround us can often determine the amount of anger we have to deal with on a daily basis
Today is God's day to let us have it. Today, from O.T. to Psalms to N.T. we are reading about a God and a man (Paul) that are showing some signs of anger and in both cases it is people, that are the source of their anger. Paul is certainly not character flawed and obviously neither is God. Neither of them needs "anger management classes" (as some might suggest) they just need people who claim to be God's children to behave accordingly so. Nobody here is asking for perfection, just simple, common courtesies, Godly and ethical behavior is all that is being asked. We as parents are not asking our children to be perfect, we are just asking for some common courtesies, some respect towards authority, towards those that could "wipe them out" (so to speak) and some obedience. The irreverence to the very God that gives us air to breath, this contempt for parents who feed and clothe their children even before themselves is totally inexcusable and some days Parents will vent and some days God will vent. Allow God his day to vent, does he not have the right? Yes God is love and his love is demonstrated to us by allowing us to see how frustrated he is with humanity, but yet, his love is demonstrated towards us that he does not wipe us out as he once did. His love is demonstrated towards us that he does not "kill us" in our sin and actually gives people like you and I a chance to repent, be forgiven and have eternal life. Yes God is angry, but it's anger in check, it's anger enveloped in a love that is constantly reaching out towards us and yet constantly being rejected and abused. It's an anger that at the end of the day has a plea....and that plea is not, "I'm going to kill you" but rather "come now, let us reason together". God no matter how anger is always wanting to reason and work things out. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow"...He is always wanting to forgive us and help us move on towards a blessed life. God's anger stems from the same anger we have towards our children. We have so much to offer, so much love to give them, but their attitudes and disobedience causes them to rob themselves of the blessing we are wanting to bestow on their lives and perhaps, this is the most frustrating part of all about being a parent and perhaps the most frustrating part of being God, ie: having so much to give, so much love to lavish but an inability to give because of the decisions of our children. Is anger a sin? No it is not, it is a natural, God given emotion that often times is very justified and warranted, God simply says, "be angry....and sin not". The question today is not "Does God need anger management classes" or "why is God so angry" but rather "am I the source of any of God's anger or frustration or anybody else's for that matter?"
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