We Need to Post This On All Church Bulletin Boards!
There are some traps that the people of God have fallen into. One of them has to do with some of the features on our face:
19 Understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Let everyone be quick to hear [be a careful, thoughtful listener], slow to speak [a speaker of carefully chosen words and], slow to anger [patient, reflective, forgiving]; 20 for the [resentful, deep-seated] anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God [that standard of behavior which He requires from us]. James1:19-20 (AMP)
In this age of opinion, where even toddlers have their opinions and voiciferously proclaim them, the saints of God have decided that conditions justify them going contrary to the above scripture. In an effort to prove our own viewpoint, we are not very good listeners, the kind of listener that prays for understanding of the speaker’s words. Neither do we carefully select our words. We say what we think; what comes up, comes out, with little or no filter. When it comes to the question of anger, we feel justified. Hence, when scripture says to be a patient and forgiving person, we determine whether the object of our "anger" is worthy of both our patience and our forgiveness. As the scripture says, this kind of anger does not and never will produce the righteousness of God. What results is that we stay in a quandary- circling the proverbial Mount Sinai over and over again.
People of God in order to get the full blessing of the benefits bestowed upon us we must learn God’s ways. He is not like us and will not become like us. In order to get invited to upper room we have to learn to play by His rules.
Selah,
Maria