“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice: 32. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
These two verses give us some good advice about things that we need to subtract from our lives as well as good things to add to our lives. I have probably dealt with these verses in past blogs, but it occurred to me this morning that they are so important that they bear repeating over and over again until we get them down. The negative things that we are to subtract from our lives are all familiar to us, because we have all had to deal with them at some time or other. All of them stem from the anger and frustration that builds up within us as we live among people in daily life. This will not come as a surprise to you I know, but people are sometimes difficult to get along with. This is true in homes, in workplaces and, yes, in church. We just rub each other the wrong way sometimes. The problem is that there are some people who seem to take pleasure in rubbing us the wrong way. I have never understood this, because I am one of those people who just wants to get along with my fellowman (and woman too). The advice for us here is to not let the anger pile up in our lives until we become totally negative. Bitterness is a difficult thing to live with. I can understand it, because I have had to fight against bitterness as well as you have. But I stay prayed up so that bitterness will not become part of my life. Bitterness leads us to have temper tantrums (wrath), anger (not fleeting anger but anger that we hold in), all of which lead to shouting matches (clamour), slander and gossip (evil speaking), and all of these result in malice. Malice is a terrible word and when people let bitterness and hatred lead to malice, they become difficult to get along with, and love is pushed way back in their hearts. Maliciousness means that we have ill will towards people, and to put it mildly, do not wish other people well. All of this leads people not to speak to each other. When this happens, it means that we have written some people off and do not care what happens to them. This is surely not the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. These negative things will either keep a lost person lost, or they will ruin a Christian’s witness and joy. Subtract these things from your life – every last one of them. In the process of subtracting these things, we need to replace them with some great Christian virtues. I think that when you read these, you will agree that all of us would be better off if all of us practiced these virtues. We are reminded to be kind to people. If our hearts are filled with malice, kindness will be a strange phenomenon for us. It actually takes less energy to be kind to people rather than being “nasty” towards them. We are to be tenderhearted, which means to be compassionate. People whose hearts have been taken over by malice cannot show compassion; because they are too busy wishing them ill. Jesus illustrated this for us in the parable of the Good Samaritan. What the Samaritan had that the priest and Levite did not have was compassion. In Luke 10:33, Jesus said of the Samaritan: “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him.” Compassion, or tenderheartedness, is a supreme Christian virtue and should be an aim of all Christians. Perhaps the hardest of these virtues for us to deal with is forgiveness. Actually, malice and forgiveness do not dwell in the same heart. We are reminded in this verse to be forgiving as we have been forgiven by Christ: “forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” If God is willing to forgive us for our sins and shortcomings, surely we can find it in our hearts to forgive others. No one has ever done to us what our sins did to Christ. Do some subtracting and adding in your life today. Bro. Joe Note: Due to circumstances this blog will be up until Thursday evening.
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“And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?”
The Book of Job is a difficult book to interpret. I’m sure that some preacher has done it, but I’ve never heard of a preacher who has preached verse-by-verse through it. What I want to do here is to share some insights with you from Job that I have come up with over the years. Job was a good and upright man, but he was not exempt from the tests that life brings on all people at one time or another. I do not mean that all people have the exact same problems that Job had, but all of us have to face tests. There are some folks who tell us that if we serve God and live for Him daily, we will have the proverbial “bed of roses.” This is not true, because Job’s troubles came on him from Satan because He was living a good life. I will hasten to share that I think I have had a better life as a Christian than I would have had if I had not been a Christian, but my life has certainly not been trouble-free. All of our troubles are not caused by sin. Some of them are caused by the circumstances of life in a fallen world; some by our own foolishness, but all of them should teach us and draw us closer to God. We learn some things about Satan in the Book of Job. When he is allowed to test Job, Satan really “lets the hammer down.” He takes the lives of all of Job’s children, his cattle, his property and everything else that Job had except for Job himself and his wife. The old devil was even able to turn Job’s wife against him, because she told him to just “curse God and die.” His handiwork was even seen in the counsel that Job’s friends tried to give him. He even had them blaming God for all that Job was going through. (In fact, Job himself blamed God for it.) Job’s friends evidently thought that they were helping him, but they were really tearing him down and making matters worse with their negative advice. This should be a lesson to us that we should be careful what we say to friends who are going through trouble, because we can’t judge what is going on. One reason that the Bible tells us not to judge others is that we don’t know all that we need to know to judge. This brings me to the fact that none of the characters in the Book of Job ever knew what really went on that caused Job to have all of the problems that he had. We know more about what happened than Job, his three friends and Elihu knew. Here is the point: God does not have to explain what is happening in our lives. That’s why it is not wise to ask “Why me?” “Why” is a question that does not have an easy answer. I will admit that there are times when we have an answer to “why” but not often. I think that a time will come when we will know all of the “whys and wherefores” of life, but it is not now. Job did a lot of griping and complaining but he never gave up his faith in God. That is the example of Job that we are to follow if our faith is to result in victorious living. Paul understood this when he was praying about his “thorn in the flesh” in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10:“For this thing (“thorn in the flesh”) I sought the Lord three times, that it might depart from me. 9. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest on me. 10. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” Paul’s answer from God was the same as Job’s ultimate answer- trust me! That’s our answer too. Bro. Joe |
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