Video Bible Lesson - 5 Things the Bible Tells Us about Anger By Brittany Rust

1/2 Hour of God’s Power with Scott Ralls

4/22/2020

5 Things the Bible Tells Us about Anger
By Brittany Rust

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. - Proverbs 15:1

Take it from me: anger is not a lovely emotion to have around. For many years I had a major anger stronghold in my life that acted as a dark cloud hovering over my relationships with family, interactions with friends, and frustrations with strangers. It was something so heavy that I felt like I had no control when it wanted its way.

Having struggled with anger for many years I can speak to its destruction and the flip side of a life away from it. In fact, the Bible has a lot to say as well. Here are five things the Bible tells us about anger.

Words can fuel or diffuse anger. (Proverbs 15:1)

Words have great power and it’s no different when it comes to anger. Proverbs tells us that a gentle word can turn away wrath and that a harsh one can stir it up. The power you have to fuel or diffuse anger in a tense conversation or situation is both heavy and fragile. You can completely change the dynamic of a situation with one word.

When you’re faced with the chance to fuel or diffuse anger, what words will you choose to use?

Stay away from anger. (Psalm 37:8, Ephesians 4:31, Proverbs 29:8)

The best thing you can do is to stay away from anger in the first place. You probably know your trigger points; if you don’t, find out what they are. Then stay out of situations where you know a trigger can be pulled. Or if you sense anger starting to rise up, excuse yourself from the situation. Whatever this looks like for you, try to separate yourself from anger triggers.

Fools allow room for anger. (Ecclesiastes 7:9, Proverbs 19:3, Proverbs 29:11)

Anger is accounted in the Bible as something expressed by a fool many times. It’s because when we give into anger and we lose rational thought, wisdom also goes out the door. We don’t make wise decisions in our anger and in fact, we can make very poor choices. These moments of outburst can be a poor reflection on us and thus, be a reflection of foolishness.

Anger doesn’t just hurt others; it hurts you. (Genesis 49:7, Job 18:4)

If you think anger only hurts another person, you’d be wrong. Anger hurts you just as much as anyone else. You get worked up, worry, and stew on what upset you. It then robs you of healing and forgiveness. Don’t let anger grab hold and steal some good part of you.

Anger can be a good tool if used right. (Nehemiah 5:6-7, >John 2: 13-18, Ephesians 4:26)

Not all anger is bad; there is a righteous anger that has a place. Nehemiah experienced it as well as Jesus. There are times when a righteous anger moves us to action in a healthy way. The key to righteous anger is that we not allow it to move us into sin. It’s when our anger causes us to sin that it becomes a bad thing. Take it from someone who struggled with anger for many years--avoid it, walk away, and/or let it go!

#Jesus, #Christian, #Bible, #Salvation, #Heaven, #God, #HolySpirit

Streams in the Desert

Streams in the Desert

He knoweth the way that I take (Job 23:10).

Believer! What a glorious assurance! This way of thine--this, it may be, a crooked, mysterious, tangled way--this way of trial and tears. "He knoweth it." The furnace seven times heated--He lighted it. There is an Almighty Guide knowing and directing our footsteps, whether it be to the bitter Marah pool, or to the joy and refreshment of Elim.

That way, dark to the Egyptians, has its pillar of cloud and fire for His own Israel. The furnace is hot; but not only can we trust the hand that kindles it, but we have the assurance that the fires are lighted not to consume, but to refine; and that when the refining process is completed (no sooner--no later) He brings His people forth as gold. 

When they think Him least near, He is often nearest. "When my spirit was overwhelmed, then thou knewest my path." Do we know of ONE brighter than the brightest radiance of the visible sun, visiting our chamber with the first waking beam of the morning; an eye of infinite tenderness and compassion following us throughout the day, knowing the way that we take?

The world, in its cold vocabulary in the hour of adversity, speaks of "Providence"--"the will of Providence"--"the strokes of Providence." PROVIDENCE! what is that? Why dethrone a living, directing God from the sovereignty of His own earth? Why substitute an inanimate, death-like abstraction, in place of an acting, controlling, personal Jehovah?

How it would take the sting from many a goading trial, to see what Job saw (in his hour of aggravated woe, when every earthly hope lay prostrate at his feet)--no hand but the Divine. He saw that hand behind the gleaming swords of the Sabeans--he saw it behind the lightning flash--he saw it giving wings to the careening tempest--he saw it in the awful silence of his rifled home.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!" Thus seeing God in everything, his faith reached its climax when this once powerful prince of the desert, seated on his bed of ashes, could say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."
--Macduff

Learning from Failure.....Dr. Charles Stanley

Learning from Failure

Dr. Charles Stanley

Luke 22:31-34

The disciple Peter was a man of great faith and bold action. But as readers of the New Testament know, his brash style sometimes led him to make humiliating mistakes. More than once, this disciple had to wear the label of "miserable failure" rather than that of "obedient servant."

We can all relate when it comes to falling short of expectations. Obedience to God is a learning process, and failure is a part of our development as humble servants. When we yield to temptation or rebel against God's authority, we realize that sin has few rewards, and even those are fleeting.

Failure is an excellent learning tool, as Peter could certainly attest. Through trial and error, he discovered that humility is required of believers (John 13:5-14); that God's ways are higher than the world's ways (Mark 8:33); and that one should never take his eyes off Jesus (Matt. 14:30). He took each of those lessons to heart and thereby grew stronger in his faith. Isn't that Romans 8:28 in action? God caused Peter's failures to be put to good use as training material because the disciple was eager to mature and serve.

God doesn't reward rebellion or wrongdoing. However, by His grace, He blesses those who choose repentance and embrace chastisement as a tool for growth.

We would probably all prefer to grow in our faith without ever making a mistake before God's eyes, but we cannot deny that missteps are instructive. Failure teaches believers that it is much wiser and more profitable to be obedient to the Lord. That's a lesson we all should take to heart.

Why Did You Lead Me Here, God?

Why Did You Lead Me Here, God?
ABBY MCDONALD

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)

I expected confirmation that we’d made the right decision. But as soon as we took the step of faith, we faced roadblocks.

My husband and I were in the midst of our second cross-country move. We had prayed about this move for months and sought counsel from other believers before moving forward. We asked God to open the door if He wanted my husband to take this job. And God did. But when we walked through it, we hit a wall.

First, our home wouldn’t sell. Then, due to a miscommunication, we didn’t receive temporary housing and lived in my in-laws’ basement for months. Although we were grateful for a place to live, the hour-and-a-half long commute wore on my husband. When we discovered our second child was on the way, the necessity to find a place to live became crucial. But despite our best efforts, we didn’t have a house.

What do we do when we think God is leading us in a certain direction, but we’re stopped in our tracks? How do we continue to act on faith when the path is uncertain? During those months in the basement, I wondered if we had heard God correctly. Things sure weren’t working out the way I thought they would.

But even in my doubt, God was working. He was there, but to see Him, I had to shift my focus. Instead of looking at the detours, I had to focus on the unchanging attributes of God.

In time, I realized that struggle doesn’t mean God is absent. It means He’s working. His faithfulness isn’t dependent on our receiving a specific answer. Faithful is who He is.

Often, I think obedience results in everything going according to my plan. I’m laser-focused on getting from point A to point B, and I miss what God is already doing. And while God wants to give us an abundant life, it may look different than we envision.

In Isaiah 43:19, the Lord says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Do you notice the word “new” there? It means unlike “anything we predict.” God has cleared the path for us. He’s prepared the way, just as He prepared the way for the Israelites who were in exile. The problem is, we tend to see only one way to get to the next point in the journey.

But God sees the entire trajectory of our lives. He sees not only the obstacles of today but also the road that will lead to victory. He sees the needs we overlook because He’s a good Father.

Eventually, I saw that God was providing stability for my firstborn during those months at my in-laws. After a huge transition, he needed familiarity. In my focus on finding a home, I missed it. But God knew. He saw each detail, and when the time was right, we acquired renters for our old home. We also found a place to live near my husband’s job that was the perfect fit for our growing family.

Friends, when we come to God with our desires, we can approach Him with confidence. We may not see the answer right away, but we can be certain He’s working. The outcome may not look the way we anticipated. God’s abilities go beyond our imagination. But often, at the moment we least expect it, we’ll see Him move.

Father, thank You for seeing each and every one of our needs, even when we doubt. Open our eyes to see the ways You are working when things don’t go according to our plan. We know You are a trailblazer, and our struggle is the fertile ground You use to do Your mightiest work. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY:
Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (NIV)

The Corinthian Man-Creed

The Corinthian Man-Creed
by Shawn McEvoy

Be on your guard, stand firm in faith, be men of courage, be strong; do everything in love. - 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Today's verse hangs on a board on the wall of my son. But years ago, long before my son was even an inkling, I came across that verse as I was sending my own father one of many letters I composed over the years to share with him the importance of salvation, and the value of life in Christ. My sister, mother, and I came to know the Lord in 1980, but it took another 17 years, seven months, and 26 days worth of praying, heart softening, and brokenness for Dan McEvoy to surrender.

And it wasn’t this letter or the above verse that pushed him into it. No, this letter I was writing simply to tell him how blessed I was to have begun dating a woman (who eventually became my wife) for whom faith came first, and I was giving God all the glory and credit and all that good stuff, and probably telling him how God delights in blessing those who trust in Him.

With the letter I enclosed a quick-and-dirty page of graphic art involving the aforementioned verse from Corinthians in some fancy font, with a clip-art picture of a sailboat, kind of as a visual aid to my letter, indicating, I suppose, what it was like for the man of God to live in this world under the Captaincy of Christ.

Well, so. After he died in 2001, I found that letter and piece of "art" in my father’s desk, looking as if it had been read and glanced at often. Something in me knew then that if I were ever to have a son, I’d commit to raising him to manhood under these same five principles:

• Be on your guard. Be ready, be alert. Expect God to be involved, expect Satan to attack. Let the wonder of creation still catch your eye.
• Stand firm in faith. Be unmoved because you know intimately that of which you believe in. Become biblically literate.
• Be a man of courage. Fear is not from God (2 Timothy 1:7), so go your way boldly. The worst that can happen – even death – still ends in victory and glory for the Christian.
• Be strong. Physically, yes, let’s take care of ourselves, and present our bodies as holy. But remember that the Lord is the strength of the strong (Ephesians 6:10), and that “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
• Do everything in love. Here’s your motivation, because he that doesn’t love doesn’t know God (1 John 4:8), and the world shall know you by your love (John 13:35).

So when Jordan was born, and we had the dedication service at our church, that’s the verse we selected to have read. When he was about two-and-a-half, he started reciting it by memory and making up arm/hand motions to go with it. We call it our “Man-Creed.” 

But here’s the secret: these couple verses from the closing of Paul’s first letter to Corinth aren’t first-and-foremost for Jordan… they’re for me.

When I first realized that, it caught me, ironically enough, "off my guard." I had been more than happy to tell my own father how to "be a man," and was perfectly willing to raise my son to be one according to the Word. How, I wonder, did I intend to do so without living out the credo, making it my own?

The Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible comments upon the 1 Corinthians passage thusly: "[Paul] shows that they ought to make their hopes of salvation to depend not on Apollos or any other teacher; that it rests with themselves." Yes, and on how I am willing to live, or better, whether I am willing to let my life be of greater worth than my words.

I don’t know about the other guys out there, but it definitely helps me to have something to live by, to recite, to write on my heart, ponder the meaning of, and connect to other scriptures as I strive to be a man after God’s own heart. And it doesn’t hurt that this creed I now try to follow is affecting its third generation in my family.

Intersecting Faith & Life: Allow me to recommend teaching your child – no matter how young – to recite Bible verses that reflect who they are and can be in Christ, and make it real in their lives. But while you’re doing it, "be on your guard." One of them may just become your own credo.

Is Your Bible Study Self-Centered?

Is Your Bible Study Self-Centered?By Lisa Appelo

Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. - John 17:3

Who is God?

What is He like? What does He do and what pleases Him? What is His order of things and what does He require?

So often we come to our Bible devotions pretty self-centered.

Answer me. Encourage me. Teach me. Help me.

When all along God has given us His Word as a stunning revelation of Who He is.

Yes, God will meet and teach us and encourage us, but there is something far greater: when we open our Bibles, we worship the One who fashioned the galaxy, who is infinitely beyond this galaxy and yet makes Himself known to us.

We read our Bible to know Who God is, what He does and how we can align our lives to Him.

When Jesus pierced time to dwell on earth, he came to a religious people who knew about him, but didn’t know him. The Jewish elite could keep the law like nobody’s business but they could not comprehend a God above the law.

Their tight little boxes of Who God is did not fit cleanly around Jesus.

They constantly challenged him:

How can you say you forgive sins?

Why do you eat with sinners?

Why don’t your disciples fast like our disciples?

Why are your disciples picking grain on the Sabbath?

How dare you break the Sabbath by healing on it?!

John 5 tells of Jesus coming to the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem. When he saw a man who’d been lame for 38 years lying there, Jesus asked him if he wanted to get well and then healed him, commanding him to pick up his mat and walk.

Why did Jesus heal this man? He hadn’t even asked for it. Nothing is said about Jesus healing any of the other paralyzed and lame lying at that same pool.

I believe this man’s healing – compassionate as it was – was secondary to Jesus’ real work: revealing Who He is.

When I read this story, my heart is immediately drawn to what Jesus can do for me. He can heal me. He can take care of my need. He can reach down in my pain and take it away.

Yes, He can.

But if I stop there, I’m stuck in the claustrophobic cosmos of my own need.

Jesus is revealing Himself in this passage and we are the lame if we miss it.

This passage explodes with declaration of Who Jesus is.

Jesus revealed His authority as the Son of God. Second person of the Trinity. All-powerful. All-worthy. All holy. So far outside the bounds of the law and yet the only true Righteousness who could fulfill the law’s righteous requirements.

And suddenly, magnifying God for Who He is realigns the trajectory of my heart and thoughts. I can worship and adore and enjoy and marvel. I can repent and grieve and realign so that my life revolves around His.

And my need? My fear? My worry? Only when I know Who God is can I rest in Him with every need, fear and worry.

No more 15 minutes of Bible reading to see what You have for me.
No more coming to You to meet me.
No more reading Your Word to affirm me.

No more self-centered Bible study.

A Prayer for Earth Day

A Prayer for Earth DayBy Jennifer Heeren

“Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.” - (Psalm 139:14)

The definition of faith is to believe in things that we cannot see. And God rewards and loves faith. But there is plenty to see that builds faith as well.

1. The Placement of Earth in the Universe

In space, stars often explode into supernovas. The Earth, however, is located in such a position that it doesn’t fall victim to devastating collisions with stars. Our moon also protects us from collisions with debris. Nearby Jupiter draws objects that have the potential to hit the Earth. In the universe, too many stars grouped together can cause immense radiation. The Earth only has a few stars near it so too much radiation isn’t a problem.

Somehow, our planet is placed in just the right position to protect it.

2. The Climate for Life on Earth

The Earth is just the right distance from our solar system’s sun—any closer and we as well as our water supply would burn up and any further we’d freeze. Even the tilt of our planet makes a huge difference. If it was tilted differently, temperatures would quickly rise or lower to extremes. The size the Earth is also just right to hold just the right amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide—both are essential to sustaining life.

The Earth is different from every other planet around it and it contains the perfect conditions for life.

3. The Intricacies of the Human Body

The human body has many, many parts and systems that work seamlessly to fight off problems and disease. For the most part, everything works perfectly without the person’s opinion or guidance. It takes seven octillion atoms to make up one human body. The eye has the equivalent of 576 megapixels. Even the smallest parts of us have a purpose. The pinky finger contributes to about 50 percent of the hand’s strength.

The body has a multitude of parts that work in sync.

And best of all, God didn’t just create a functional world, although that alone is huge. He also gave us the ability to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell so we could appreciate beauty as well as function.

It takes more faith to believe that an explosion alone created this perfect environment than it does to believe that an Almighty Engineer built it. When you throw a bunch of random things in a pile, you do not get intricate design. You get chaos. But when you engineer and design things, you come up with products that have a purpose and beauty too. The extreme details involved in life as we know it point extensively to a Creator who deserves to be praised!

A Prayer for Earth Day

Dear Creator God, Let me always be in awe of Your wonderful works of creation. I don’t want to take the details of the world You created for me for granted. Everything around me is wonderfully complex and splendid. You, Lord, are both an Engineer and an Artist that built a world to perfectly sustain life. But you didn’t stop there. You also made immense details that please all of our senses as well. There are beautiful things to see, sounds to hear, textures to feel, yummy food to taste, and even delightful aromas to bring us enjoyment. Thank you for the details of life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.