Tag: anger

Our Feelings Are Often Our Deadliest Enemy

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Courtesy: Jill Wellington from Pixabay

 

Feelings were created by our Maker for our utmost pleasure. But when man fell into sin, feelings became man’s second greatest enemy, after the Devil himself. It is only when a person has received the Holy Spirit, does the original purpose of feelings work in es life.

Even in fallen man, feelings have a great role in making es life happier and safer. Such feelings are those relating to falling in love, paternal affection, friendship, thrill in wholesome encounters, and many other positive emotions. But overall, the heart, the generator and harborer of all feelings, in such a person is full of deceit, and desperately wicked. Jer 17:9 It is feelings that incite a man or a woman to anger, hate, lust, pride, jealousy, resentment, murder, rebellion, and all other negative emotions.

In a person begotten of the Holy Spirit, feelings are the greatest tool of both the Devil and our natural man to lead us to temptation. Temptation without feeling is no temptation but only a proposition to the soul. When Jesus was tempted with food after his forty days of fasting, his feeling of hunger was beyond human comprehension. But some temptations are not real temptations, but only propositions because there is no feeling involved. Satan’s temptation of Jesus with all the glory of the world’s kingdoms was no temptation at all, but only a silly proposition given in a desperate bid. Because there was no feeling in Jesus to have what was offered. Usually, Satan does not bother to lure a person with a temptation for which e has no feelings. For example, if the Devil were to tempt me with a cool offer of a million dollars by some easy fraud, that’s no temptation at all, but a silly thought to me. Similarly, for any temptation that you do not have a feeling for.

But the Devil knows exactly what are the specific feelings you have submerged in your heart. As a Christian, you don’t allow anymore the evil feelings to override your will and cause you to sin. But often, the negative feelings in a Godly person are strong, and there is a struggle to suppress the feelings and act contrary to the natural feelings. Sometimes, the struggle ends in the failure of the will and in the victory of the feelings. An example is when David was overwhelmed by his feelings for Bathsheba while he was pacing about on the terrace of his palace. Think of a case in your own life, where, after you became a Christian, you yielded to your feelings contrary to the injunctions of your will.

I cannot put even a rough estimate of the percentage of good feelings and evil feelings in a Christian. Perhaps, 50 percent of the feelings in em are good and 50 percent evil. Perhaps only 10 percent of feelings in such a Godly person is positive, and 90 percent evil. The latter is probably the proportion in my case, and probably also in the case of Paul, who cried out against his feelings, ‘O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ Rm 7:24 ‘Body of death’ is just another term for the powerful feelings of the natural man buried inside our body.

Often, when a strong feeling fills you, and the Holy Spirit gives you discernment that it is not from your ‘I’ but from the sinful man lurking inside you Rm 7:20, the best response is to act exactly the opposite of what your feelings want you to do.

The Lord give you the discernment and the power to always react toward your feelings in perfect accord with your will, which is always directed by the Holy Spirit.

 

Pappa Joseph

 

 

When Someone Does You Dirt, You Never Recover Until…

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A man did dirt to my family many years ago. Until then he was an amiable neighbor to us. He owned a taxi, and we hired his services whenever we needed a car to go somewhere. Then one day, my mother had an acute heart problem and needed to be taken to the hospital immediately. We called him as usual. But it was an odd hour of the day, and he refused. Somehow, we managed with difficulty to find another car.

Since then, the very sight of him was an abomination to me. If I passed him by, I deliberately ignored him. Over the past one and a half decades, whenever I thought of him, I also thought of how he responded to us that day.

Now, I certainly knew about Christ’s teaching on forgiveness and about praying for those who have wronged us. I agreed with Christ in principle and strove not to hate him. But my natural man continued to abhor him without abatement.

Yesterday, as I write this, another neighbor mentioned to me about this abominable man’s son. Now his children know nothing about this incident and have not partaken of their father’s dirt. Nevertheless, I wanted to have nothing to do with his children either. When the father didn’t drive anymore, one of his sons took over, and once, without knowing who his dad was, I hired the son’s services. Later, when I came to know it was the dirtman’s offspring, I wished I hadn’t taken that car. And since then, there were several occasions that when I needed a car someone would propose the offensive vehicle, and I would immediately decline it with an imperceptible snort.

This morning, I realized my dislike of him and his family cannot continue if I am to grow in the stature of Christ. You just cannot remain in a static state of not loving anyone. As a wise minister once preached to me, you either keep growing in love, or you keep growing colder. In other words, it is not enough not to hate someone. If we do not keep growing in our love for someone, we will eventually grow to hate him.

So I knew it was not only not enough to stop disliking the dirtman, and all his descendants as well, but now I have to deliberately demonstrate my love for him. My natural man couldn’t take it – no way. But by now I know how to handle my natural man. I know, thanks initially to secular sychologist William James, that I cannot control my feelings, but I certainly can control what I think, say, and do. So I went on my knees to God and prayed thus:

‘Lord, you know there is no way I can come to like that man naturally. I suppose I can keep myself from hating him with a deadly hatred, but there’s no way I want to have anything to do with him. I certainly don’t want to see him struck with a bolt of lightning, or see his family suffer a tragedy, but I, that is, my natural man, would certainly enjoy seeing him in a situation where he is having a heart problem and his children are struggling to find a car to take him to the hospital. Now that’s what I feel naturally, Lord, and there’s nothing I can do directly to confront those feelings. But you have shown me what I can do: Ignoring my natural man and his feelings, my spiritual man can pray for him and his family. And I am doing that now. Lord, bless that man and his family. Prosper them…’

After praying for him, my natural feelings remained stubbornly the same toward the man. No, I couldn’t say, ‘Hey presto! I prayed for my enemy, and behold, now my love for him is brimful and overflowing in my heart.’ But I could certainly say that from that time I had a clear conscience before God. I knew I was on my way eventually to loving him with my feelings as much as with my will. God would grant that change in me in his own time. In the meantime, every time thoughts of the dirt he did to us frothed up in my mind, my spiritual man was directed by my will – against my natural feelings – to immediately ask God to bless him.

Today, many years later, I can say that my natural feelings of dislike for that man has totally evaporated. As Christ grows in me, so does his mercy and love in me toward those who do me dirt.

When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.   Alan Paton, author of Cry, The Beloved Country

 

Pappa Joseph

 

 

“Help, Lord, For the Godly Man Ceases!”

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There are very few good men and women left in this generation. So choose your paths on earth carefully, and tread with caution where the wicked traverses your path.

Photo Courtesy: bikesandwich – flickr.com

Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases!
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.

I am writing these words of David, after having uttered them myself a little while ago as I rode my motorcycle back home from a trip to the town. I encountered several drivers on the highway who had scant regard for the safety of others; their one intent was to get their own way, even if they have to overtake a vehicle in a dangerous manner though they could see a car heading toward them in the opposite direction, or even if they have to cross a junction in the middle of a red signal, or even if they have to shove this puny bike rider to the side by driving frighteningly close to me so I would move over to the hard shoulder so they could bypass me more quickly.

The highway is one of the most popular grounds for profane people to vent their feelings of hate and anger at others. When a vehicle comes in the way of another, the most common reaction of the latter is an angry honk, or a vulgar finger sign, or some swearing, or usually all of them together. The percentage of drivers who don’t show any of these negative reactions when somebody gets in their way, is decreasing dramatically each year.

As the world tailspins into its last days, the lives of ordinary people are becoming the growing target of marauders, assaulters, swindlers, and hostile men. The streets of the cities in many countries are no more safe for women at any time. I wrote in another message of how a group of men abducted a woman from a public transport in India in daylight even though the woman was escorted by a male companion. This is a new phenomenon in my country. Such incidents, say the Bible, are only going to increase each year in our generation which is witnessing the endtime signs.

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.   2 Tim 3:1-4,12-13

In the workplace, in the shopping malls, on the streets, in the entertainment halls, in the sports arena, on tv, in movies – if you keep a keen eye you can observe how people are increasingly becoming inconsiderate of others, greedy for money, unloving, unforgiving, without self-control, violent, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

This generation is living in a perilous age when vile people are becoming ‘worse and worse’. Therefore, those who want to live an upright life must daily pray for their and their loved ones’ constant protection wherever they go. As each year passes and the world gets even more unsafe, you should exercise great caution if you plan to attend certain public events.

Spectator events such as sports and carnivals are prime places for demons to run riot. Most of the spectators are not Christians who live by what the Bible has instructed them. Most of them live by whatever their emotions urge them at the moment. Where there is a crowd of such people, evil spirits get into a frenzy among them, like sharks get into a deadly frenzy at the smell of blood. Anything could happen then that may endanger your life or modesty. Stampede, riot, fight, molestation, terrorist attack.

My advice to you, child of God, for these last days: avoid spectator events as much as possible. Drive defensively, with constant alertness against some Godless driver ahead of you or behind you who might unexpectedly do something that could risk your life. Walk on the streets with a prayer on your lips, especially if you are a woman. Women should never go alone to a theater or a sports event or carnival. You, if you are a woman, should never travel alone as a tourist in any country, even your own. Do you know what happened to Dinah, the daughter of one of God’s greatest men, Jacob, when she went out alone to visit some women of the new land where she and the rest of her family had recently settled? You may read the shocking story in Genesis 34.

On the road, give way to the other driver if he seems impatient, even if you have the right of way. Give way, give room, avoid righteous confrontation of any kind, show extra courtesy to the discourteous, return soft words, such as ‘sorry’, for hard obscenities hurled at you.

Above all, daily ask God to preserve you and your loved ones from the acts of the unruly and faithless people in whose midst you live and move around.

‘Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!
The faithful have vanished from the earth!
Neighbors lie to each other, speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts.
May the Lord cut off their flattering lips and silence their boastful tongues.
They say, “We will lie to our hearts’ content. Our lips are our own – who can stop us?”
The Lord replies, “I have seen violence done to the helpless, and I have heard the groans of the poor. Now I will rise up to rescue them, as they have longed for me to do.”
The Lord’s promises are pure, like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times over. Therefore, Lord, we know you will protect the oppressed, preserving them forever from this lying generation, even though the wicked strut about, and evil is praised throughout the land.’   Psalm 12 NLT

 

Pappa Joseph