19/11/09

For Christ's sake put it away

Ephesians 4:31,32 - Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.


Yesterday the Lord spoke to us about coming to Him in holiness. In today's message the Lord goes further in to details of un-holiness in us and how to overcome it.

The areas of un-holiness given are:

Bitterness - when we live a life full of negativity. This happens only because we do not know the beauty of God and His creation; His purpose of creating us. It is only when we understand this, we overlook the time of the caterpillar growing and getting unto his cocoon; we keep our eyes focused on the beautiful butterfly that it changes into.

Wrath (the word here is actually Anger) - And beautiful example of angry person is a drunk person. In the start the person feels strong; similarly in the start being a little angry makes one feel strong. The problem comes when the limits are passed and this always happens without the person consent, anger does not ask your permission when it takes over. It is at this time either the anger like alcohol drives the person mad or kills the person by its intoxication.

Anger (the word here is actually Vengeance) - This is simply anger with justification, where we put a gift wrapper on the wrong making it look good. We have full right in what we do when we under emotion, but we do not realize that we are holding a ball of fire in our hands while waiting for the right time to throw it. We will surely hurt the other person but we do not realize in our fleshy (body and mind / heart) self we are burning our own self for a longer time then what we do to the other person.

Clamour (Hue and cry) - It is only a person in want who makes a hue and cry over things. A person who is satisfied will never clamor over anything. It is because we do not believe that all our needs are supplied in Christ and how rich we are in Christ that we clamor in life.

Evil speaking (Slander) - What will you say to a person roaming around holding leaves of poison ivy in their bare hands trying to rub others with it? I think the word would be foolish, right. Speaking evil is like filling your own mouth with bitter substance and spitting it on to others. More than the damage we do unto others, we do to ourselves. Speaking evil of others (backbiting) destroys our spirit and soul very much and like in the case of anger allows evil spirits to overtake us without our knowledge.

These are a few of the important evils which the Lord highlights to us.

Why these?

These, because they stealth into our lives and we become aware of them only when they have caused a lot of damage.

That does not mean we be like watchmen keeping a lookout for them, waiting for them to pop their ugly heads and to deal with them. To counter them the Lord gives us a very easy way that is we need to always operate in grace (kindness), compassion (tenderhearted), forgiving others, living in Christ and for Christ.


[ Prayer Starter ]
Lord God, as Christ You showed us how to overcome our sinful nature. By breaking your body and by give us your Spirit You revealed life and the meaning of life to us. Lord, help us from blinding ourselves in darkness and keep us always in your light. Strengthen us as we walk in your ways...

We make this prayer in Jesus' Name, Amen.


[ Reference Scriptures ]
Ephesians 4:31,32
31 Let all bitterness, and anger (wrath), and vengeance (anger), and hue and cry (clamor), and slander (evil speaking), be put away from you, with all malice:
32 and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you

The Word of God was given free to us, therefore we should also share it freely with others. (All rights are with God)