A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Back in those few days leading up to that very first Easter, the Disciples were afraid. Petrified in fact. There was a plot afoot to assassinate Jesus. That was bad enough. But were they in the firing line too? Were they going to die too? And into that little mess, Jesus spoke to them about joy and peace.
The days leading up to that first Good Friday, which incidentally at the time must have felt anything but good, they were frightening days. Not for Jesus. Of course His impending crucifixion weighed heavily upon Him but He didn't seem to be afraid since He knew where He was going and what He had to do.
But His disciples, they were very definitely afraid. Why? Not just because they felt the plot to assassinate Jesus, not just because they were aware of the under currents and the plotting and the scheming and the conniving that was afoot to rob them of this amazing Jesus but because their lives were under threat too.
I mean they were His disciples, they were widely recognised as being the inner circle of Rabbi Jesus followers. That's why Peter ended up denying Jesus three times because he feared for his own life.
So while on these days leading up to Easter you and I may well be looking forward to a long weekend and a rest and having just a bit extra chocolate that frankly our waistlines and cholesterol levels just don't need, these disciples of Jesus were living in fear.
Fear not just of losing Jesus but fear of losing their own lives, fear of their whole belief system collapsing. Everything they'd dedicated their lives to these last three and a half years and fear for their own skin. No, that Friday looked anything but good and it's into this reality, this fearful reality that Jesus speaks these words to His disciples. John chapter 16 beginning at verse 16:
'A little while and you won't see me any longer and again a little while and you will see me.' Then some of His disciples said to one another, 'What does He mean by saying "In a little while you'll see me no longer and again in a while you'll see me, because I'm going away to the Father?"' They said, 'What does He mean by this "a little while"? We do not know what He's talking about.' 
Jesus knew they wanted to ask Him so He said to them, 'Are you discussing amongst yourselves what I meant when I said "A little while and you'll no longer see me and again in a little while you'll see me?" Truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn but the world will rejoice and you will have pain but your pain will turn to joy.'
When a woman's in labour she has pain because her hour has come but when her child is born she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.
On that day you'll be asking nothing of me. Very truly I tell you if you ask anything of the Father in my name He will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive so that your joy may be made complete. I've said these things to you in figures of speech but the hour's coming when I'll no longer speak to you in figures but will tell you plainly of the Father.
On that day you will ask in my name and I do not say to you that I'll ask the Father on your behalf for the Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into this world. Again I am leaving the world and going to the Father.'
His disciples said, 'Yes now you're speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech. Now we know that you know all things and do not need to have anyone question you. By this we believe that you came from God'. Jesus answered them, 'Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed it has come when you'll be scattered, each one to his home and you will leave me alone yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace.
In the world you face persecution but take courage I have conquered the world.
Now as I put myself in the shoes of these disciples, this rag tag group of fishermen and tax collectors, uneducated yokels by and large who had fallen for Jesus, I have to say what Jesus just said to us, its frightening and confusing, it just doesn't make sense.
For a little while and then I'll be gone and then you'll see me again and then I'll speak plainly instead of in riddles and you're going to suffer pain but your pain will turn to joy.
I mean give me a break Jesus, I would have been saying, can you please, please tell me exactly what you mean.
So are you saying the forces of darkness that are plotting against you, they're going to win? Is that what you're saying? And if it is so what about all your miracles? What about all the amazing things that you told us and taught us, is this how it's all going to end? Are we just going to be left behind? And how can you come back again from all of that?
Do you think in this fearful confusing time, isn't that what you and I would be thinking and wanting to ask Jesus? Why are you promising me pain? Why are you doing this if you're the Messiah? I left everything to follow you and now it's all falling in a screaming heap and what about me? What's going to happen to me? Am I going to die too or do I just go back to the fishing boat and forget the last three and half years of sacrifice?
The hour is coming, indeed it has come when you'll be scattered, each one to his home and you will leave me alone. Yet I'm not alone because the Father is with me.
Why is He telling me this stuff? Why is He doing this? Jesus?
I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace. For in this world you will face persecution but take courage for I have overcome the world.
Jesus was telling them things just the way they were. And I love that about Him. He's never one to sweep things under the carpet or to coat them in sugar or to hoodwink us with some false reality that we're all floating around like angels on cloud nine. Jesus came to do something tough and brutal.
So seriously does God take our sin, yours and mine, so big a deal is it to Him that our sin separates us from Him for all eternity. So great is His love for us and His desire for us to spend from now until the rest of eternity in His presence that He sends us His one and only Son to be brutally nailed to a cross for thee and for me. That's how big a deal my sin and your sin is for God lest we should ever be inclined to think we can just sweep our little sins under the carpet.
And He speaks into their fear with words of confidence in His Father and with words of peace. For in this world we will all have tribulation, we will be persecuted, the going will get tough, it will be difficult and fearful and confusing and unpredictable. That word there for persecution, the Greek, is the word Thlipsis which means literally to be put under pressure like grapes in a wine press, to have the juice, the life squeezed out of you.
That's what He's talking about. And I know you're going to travel through all of this and I know it isn't going to make sense and I know you're going to be afraid but as you're in this place remember my words because I'm coming back for you. I haven't left you alone. You won't be orphaned. I'm telling you the truth, the way things are, in this world you will be under pressure but take courage, be strong, gird up the loins of your heart for I have overcome the world.
Jesus has won. He defeated sin on the cross. He defeated death in the empty tomb and He has said these things and done these things so that in the middle of our fear and our pain and our tribulation we might have peace. Shalom. A complete peace and trust and confidence in Jesus.

Just before He was betrayed, Jesus got down and washed the dirty, smelly feet of His disciples. Have you ever wondered how you'd react if He knocked on your front door tonight and offered to wash your feet? I'm not sure I'd be that keen to let Him do that … but as it turns out, that's exactly what He came to do!
An amazing week coming up this week. Not just here on the program but in life generally as we head towards Easter. Here we are on the Monday before that Friday where we celebrate, oh maybe celebrate isn't quite an apt choice of words here, when we remember that Jesus was nailed to that cross.
We call it Good Friday but back then it didn't look too good, it didn't feel too good and those days and weeks leading up to that fateful day, a day on which the whole of the history of humanity pivots. They were tense and dangerous days and for the disciples it was quite a frightening time.
And so today and over the coming days we're again going to spend some time just travelling alongside the disciples, seeing what they saw, hearing what they heard and hopefully feeling what they felt. Why? Well that's simple. Because I for one am sick of kind of just zooming through Easter as though it's just a long weekend and a religious celebration, a time for some extra chocolate which truly I just don't need.
No this Easter thing is huge, I mean it's huge and my hunch is that as we walk beside the disciples, as we're going to do by recounting the Apostle John's account of events through the Gospel, my hunch is that Gods Spirit will touch our hearts with a fresh revelation and what it is that our mighty God was up to. And today we're going to take a look at this thing that Jesus did of washing His disciples feet, what was that all about?
John chapter 13 beginning at verse 1:
Now before the festival of the Passover Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart from this world and to go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world He loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Him. And during the supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands and that He had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off His outer robe and tied a towel around Himself.
Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciple's feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around Him. He came to Simon Peter who said to Him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" And Jesus answered, "You do not know what I'm doing but later you will understand". Peter said to Him, "You'll never wash my feet" and Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share in me".
So Simon Peter said to Him, 'Lord, not just my feet but also my hands and my head'. Jesus said to him, 'One who has bathed does not need to wash except for the feet but is entirely clean and you are clean though not all of you', for He knew who was about to betray Him and for this reason He said, 'Not all of you are clean.'
After He'd washed their feet and He put His robe back on again and He returned to the table He said to them, 'Do you know what I have done for you? You call me teacher and Lord and you are right for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example that you also should do as I have done to you. 
Very truly I tell you servants are not greater than their masters nor are messengers greater than the one who have sent them. If you know these things you are blessed if you do them. I'm not speaking of all of you, I know whom I have chosen but it is to fulfil the Scriptures that "The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me." I tell you this now before it occurs so that when it does occur you may believe that I am He.
Very truly I tell you whoever receives one whom I send receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who has sent me.
So there's Jesus, the Son of God, He washes the feet of His disciples on that night as they celebrated the Passover meal together in the upper room and literally just hours before He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was a difficult time, a dangerous time. I suspect the disciples had never celebrated the Passover quite in this way, with this dark cloud of danger and betrayal and fear and death hanging over them.
The thing we can so often forget is that they knew there were plots afoot to kill Jesus and they simple couldn't imagine that happening after having seen Him do all the things He'd done. The miracles, the acts of kindness and after having heard all that He had to say, the wisdom and the truth and the love in His words. But that wasn't all, they were afraid for their own lives too. Would they be arrested? Would they be tried and crucified too?
So they eat the meal, roast lamb with the bitter herbs and unleavened bread and they drink the wine and then Jesus gives them a foot bath. Now think about this, the Son of God girds up His loins, gets a bowl and a bath and washes their grubby smelly feet. And they were really grubby and smelly. These people had been walking out their on the roads with animal excrement and dust and dirt wearing just sandals. Who knows how long and how dirty their toenails were. I mean let's get real here right?
This wasn't some nice clean safe sanitised religious ritual. This was a grubby, dirty, smelly thing that Jesus was doing, washing their feet and He, the Son of the living God. Do you see how low He was prepared to bow? Do you see how humble He was? And He didn't just wash the feet of those disciples who loved Him, He washed the feet of that one disciple, Judas Iscariot, who had already plotted to betray Him and sell Him out to the authorities. Judas the assassin who'd taken thirty pieces of silver for the life of Jesus. Jesus washed his feet too.
And Peter had the reaction that I think I would have had. Peter said to Jesus, "You will never wash my feet". In other words, it's just not right. You're the Lord, you're the Messiah, you're the Son of God, what are you doing washing my feet? It's not right. This reaction, it was a reaction against grace so Jesus answered him;
Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.
So Peter being Peter gets this quickly and dives in boots and all and says, "well Lord, not just my feet but my hands and my head". No Jesus was right, they didn't understand what He was up to but this act of complete servitude, complete humility, complete stepping down off the throne of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and washing their feet was a symbolic act.
It was acting out the grace of the cross which was about to come. It was explaining in a way that one day they would understand looking back on it, what the cross was all about. Jesus became a nothing and a nobody. Jesus bowing His life down at our feet in order that we might be saved. And the whole point of grace is that it's not right, it's not just, it's completely wrong, it's completely the wrong way round that Jesus should have to suffer on that cross and to die for my sin and my rebellion and yours.
On that cross He died my death, the death that I deserve and yours. Completely unfair, completely the wrong way round and we could protest, we could say that's unjust but no doubt He would answer:
Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.
Unless we accept what He's done for us, He who knew no sin becoming sin so that we might be completely right with God, unless we accept that and trust in that and believe in that with all that we are then quite simply we will have no share in Jesus.

Anger is an interesting thing – it comes from our sense of justice. Even God gets angry. Problem is, sometimes our sense of justice can be a little distorted. So when we experience anger – what can we do with it?
Anger is one of those basic facts of life and in many respects it's a natural reaction to a whole range of situations. Sometimes we think that anger in and of itself is wrong, well that's not so. See, God gets angry so either God is a sinner or anger itself is not a sin. Hmm, makes you think doesn't it? I passionately believe that Jesus Christ came and died for my sins and yours and that He was and is utterly perfect. A perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins.
And yet when He went to the temple in Jerusalem and saw that they had turned it into a bizarre He was angry, He made a whip and turned over the tables and drove the traders out of the temple with that whip. Of course God is a loving God but God is also a god of anger and ultimately, of punishment. So is anger right or wrong in our lives and what do we do with that anger?
Well, well let's take a look at the anatomy of anger today. Basically it goes something like this: I've been wronged by someone, I therefore feel angry, they owe me some recompense so I'm going to respond in anger to obtain vengeance. That's kind of the cycle and in a sense, anger comes out of our sense of justice.
Of course, as we've seen on the program this week we can have quite a distorted sense of justice sometimes. We can be touchy or selfish and throw tantrums and so even though actually sometimes we haven't been wronged, people just fall short of our expectations or, or we're being selfish and we feel wronged and then anger, justice and vengeance take hold in our hearts.
Sometimes people do things that are clearly wrong and we're angry, okay how do we respond? The other day on the program we read this passage from the New Testament book of Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 26. It says:
Be angry but don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger and don't make room for the devil.
In other words, sometimes we get angry, God knows that. The question is whether we dwell on it and let it fester over night and tomorrow and the next day and over and over and over and in doing so, whether we make room for the devil to distort our sense of justice and then this root of bitterness takes hold in our lives OR whether, like God, we're "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."
See, anger itself isn't a sin, God is angry with those who turn their backs on Him. You see that over and over and over again throughout the Bible. Let me read you just one example of God's anger, this is about Israel, Gods chosen people and it comes from the book of Judges chapter 2, verse 12:
Israel forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of Egypt. They followed and they worshipped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger because they forsook Him and they served Baal and the other gods. In His anger against Israel the Lord handed them over to the raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them just as He had sworn to them. They were in great distress.
See, this is God's response to His people forsaking Him but it's a right response. God never gets angry without just cause and this anger of God against Israel comes from God's sense of justice. He had a relationship with Israel, they were His people, He was their God and He said:
I'm a jealous God; you will have no other Gods before Me. You will worship me and me alone.
And of course Israel turns away from God and does these horrible things and they experience Gods anger and yet the wonder of God is that He's slow to anger and ready to forgive.
You know ultimately, when you and I harden our hearts against Him and our ways against Him, like Israel we will experience His anger. So how do we make sense of all of this? God gets angry but we shouldn't? Remember anger has its roots in our sense of justice. That much we get from God because we're made in His image. And of course, as I said, God never gets angry without just cause. The problem is, we can't say the same thing about us. Our justice gyroscope is so often out of balance and then, when we do experience anger we want to wallow in it and work it over and over in our heads and seek revenge and in doing that we make room for the devil.
Anger is a natural reaction and in some cases it's the right reaction the problem is, when you or I are the injured party our sense of justice is questionable at best and whacky at worst. So what do we do? How do we handle it when we feel that we've been wronged and we want revenge? We want recompense, we want justice to be done, how do we handle that? Well, God tells us in Romans chapter 12 beginning at verse 17 have a listen, he says:
Don't repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what's right in the eyes of everybody. If its possible, as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone. Don't take revenge my friends but leave room for Gods wrath for it is written, "It is mine to avenge and I will repay," says the Lord. To the contrary: If your enemy is hungry feed him, if he's thirsty give him something to drink. In doing this you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.
In other words leave the "justice" thing to God, leave the satisfaction, the recompense, the vengeance as God puts it, to God because His sense of justice is so much better than ours and in any case who knows what He's up to in that person's life? Only He does. When someone hurts us our initial reaction may well be anger, the same anger that God feels when He sees injustice.
The thing that's wrong is for us to repay that evil with another evil, 2 wrongs maketh not a right and God's saying here, "Don't take revenge but leave room for Gods wrath." Leave room for God to act because Gods justice is so much better than ours, instead bless your enemy. If they're hungry feed them, if they're thirsty give them something to drink, show them grace.
Now we may never see the justice but then that's why Jesus died for you and me, that was so unjust but on that cross justice meets love and its called grace. Grace has been shown to us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on that cross, a grace He now calls us to show to others.
Yes, you and I will experience anger from time to time but we're not to repay evil with evil, leave that bit to God. Forgive, forget, live life to the full and bless people, even the people that hurt us, with the grace that God has shown to us. You know something, I don't think that's too bad a plan, what do you think?

It is so easy to go from cool, calm and collected one minute into a temper tantrum the very next. Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde. But God has some really practical advice on how to handle that.
When you get a group of people together there seems to be, well, two sorts of people there. First there's the person who talks all the time, never shuts up and the other is the person who almost never says anything in the group. Somehow it seems that not many people seem to get the balance right, the balance between talking and listening and often the people who are really quiet in the group can be quite vocal even aggressive in a one on one situation.
Well take for instance when someone provokes us, you know when they do something and you can feel your blood boiling and you go all red in the face, right at that moment it's so easy to spit out something venomous, words we can't take back, words that damage a relationship. Sometimes when we're provoked we can be a bit quick on the draw when it comes to responding.
I want to share a story with you, I remember once as a consultant  (I used to run an IT consulting firm with some partners before I became a Christian. Quite a few years ago now) I was being mucked around by a large and important client of a particular ethnic heritage. I was dealing with him for months trying to kick off a project that meant a lot of money for our firm, it was a large global organisation and after months of investing time and effort with the people and with their management they pulled the plug on the project.
I remember I was sitting in my office and I received an email from one of our consultants working with me on this particular project, explaining that the client had decided not to go ahead. I just blew my stack, I couldn't believe that they had wasted so much of our time and resources and it wasn't fair and we were losing all this revenue and I tell you, I am not afraid to admit, I had a few choice sentiments that I almost expressed in a reply to that email to my fellow consultant. I even typed this angry venomous email.
I was just about to send it and I thought better of it and instead I erased all of that and I sent a fairly benign email. Well, it's just as well because I hit the "reply to all" button on the email, and the email ended up not only with my fellow consultant but also with the client. Gulp! Can you imagine, if my thoughts of anger had been included in this vitriolic angry email, what would have happened?
Now you might say, "Berni, why are you sharing this stuff with us?" It's simple because we all go through situations day by day by day that make us angry. People, organisations, circumstances drive us insane and we want to explode. Just the other day I was staying at a place and the houses were fairly close together and it was a little holiday place and a neighbour, a few doors down, had their music on really loud, I mean really loud. Couldn't sit in our lounge room and just talk so I just went down and asked them if they wouldn't mind turning it down. Well, you should have heard what came out of that guy's mouth.
Just a simple thing, their music was too loud and obviously they'd never been taught to take other people into account and the vitriol, the words, the venom that came out of his mouth and now he just ignores me and I just asked him to turn it down and I thought, "hang on, you're missing something. You were the guy who was doing the wrong thing!" And you know what I wanted to do? I just wanted to explode at him, I just wanted to tell him what I really thought, I wanted to teach him a lesson, I wanted to teach him some manners. You know the feeling don't you? And then he ignores me, he was the one that did wrong.
Now I'm really glad that I went through that experience and as hard as it was, can I tell you? Every fibre of my being wanted to tell this guy what I thought, as hard as that was I didn't say anything because exploding is never a good look, never but this feeling of anger is something we all experience. Some people more than others, some people are like on a hair trigger, anything will set them off, anger and tantrums are an ugly thing.
We're talking about anger management on the program this week and there's some really great practical input from Gods word that I want to share with you today. Comes from James in the New Testament chapter 1, verse 19. It says this:
My dear brothers take note of this, everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to become angry because a mans anger doesn't bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore get rid of all the moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you.
Isn't this really practical, it's special? God's solution to this whole anger thing, 'Be slow to speak and slow to become angry.'
Slow down! Every time someone does something that annoys us we don't have to react this instant. We don't have to rip their heads off; we don't have to send an angry email. Maybe this is where the advice comes from "count to ten" you know. Interesting, throughout the Bible nine times you'll find these words or ones very similar:
The Lord is compassionate and gracious; slow to anger abounding in steadfast love.
I'll read it to you again; this comes from Psalm 103, verse 8:
The Lord is compassionate and gracious; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
What a great concept, firstly He's compassionate and gracious, He's slow to anger. Just hold on for a minute, cut this person some slack, this man who wouldn't turn his music down. If I'm behaving like God I'm going to be slow to anger and the abounding and steadfast love bit, you know what I've decided to do? I've decided to pray for this guy regularly 'cause that's what Jesus says, "Pray for your enemies."
And be slow to speak. Just don't say anything, don't defend or assert or criticise or judge or belittle or shout or scream or anything. Don't! Be slow to speak. Now that's not easy, it begins with a change of heart; it begins by deciding that my anger is my problem. It begins by me resigning from the position of "tin pot little god at the centre of the universe". It begins by deciding the world doesn't owe me anything.
Being slow to anger and slow to respond and when we do respond, what should we say? I love this, this bit from Proverbs chapter 15, verse 1:
A gentle answer turns away wrath but a hard word stirs up anger.
You know when someone's done us wrong the last thing we want to do is give them a gently answer, it just so cuts across the grain. We want to get recompense but Gods wisdom is that, 'a gentle answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up even more anger'. This is Gods wisdom and it's really hard, it goes against the grain to bite our lip when someone else does something wrong.
It's so hard sometimes to respond in love, I find it hard. Each time becomes a little easier, each time heals a relationship, each time people notice and one day the relationship can be so strong that we have the ability to influence this person who hurt us with the love and the mercy and the grace of God.
It's hard to deal with anger but there's a right way and the wrong way.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious; slow to anger abounding in steadfast love.

Every now and then – we all throw a temper tantrum. And so often it's over the craziest little things. A hot temper isn't a good look. So – how do you deal with it? How can you conquer it?
Now when we're bringing up children we expect them to have temper tantrums. They're never fun of course but a temper tantrum is part of growing up. It's a part of the process of moving from immaturity to maturity, of discovering how to exercise the responsibilities that come with new freedoms and that's why I believe Gods plan is to put children into loving families so that mum and dad who are more mature and who love the child are there to guide the child through that growing process and the love bit helps us to absorb the pain and the inconvenience of the tantrums along the way.
It's something that I think none of us really appreciate until we become parents ourselves. Now temper tantrums are par for the course for a child or a teenager but what about an adult, what about a person who is supposed to have matured and learned how to control their emotions? And when you or I have a temper tantrum do we just shrug our shoulders and say, "oh well' or is it something we need to deal with?"
We've all been there haven't we? Having our little temper tantrum and 99% of the time they're over silly little things. If we were truly honest with ourselves we'd stand back and say, "well, that was dumb wasn't it? Why did I bite my wife's head off over something small? Why did I snap at my husband because of this tiny little thing?"
For me it's the fact that I'm a perfectionist, it's just the way I am, it was the way I was brought up. Our school motto was "Age quod agis" which means "whatever you do, do well" or "if it's worth doing it's worth doing properly". So I always fold and hang the bath towels perfectly, when I'm dusting I pick up things on the shelf and dust under them instead of dusting around them, I'm always on time and normally five minutes early, I always put the milk back exactly the same spot in the fridge not in a different place, the knives in the knife block, each one has to be in its place.
When you're a person like that God is going to make absolutely sure that He puts you in a family and into a work place into a Church where there's at least one person who's completely at the opposite end of the spectrum. Someone who's not neat and tidy, someone who's not always on time. It's an absolute dead certainty that God's going to do that.
And it doesn't matter what personality type we are He's always going to make sure that we rub up against someone who's different and that is sometimes going to drive us nuts if we let it. That's where so many people have their temper tantrums, right in that place of difference.
Instead of standing back and realising those differences we just react like Pavlov's dogs, stimulus: response, stimulus: response, stimulus: response. It's a vicious cycle that leads to anger and temper tantrums. Someone does something that flicks our switch off we go with this temper tantrum. I wonder if you can relate to this.
My daughter Melissa works part time on a check-out in a large department store and every time she comes home at least one customer had to have a temper tantrum at the counter over something. Let's get a revelation today; we live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people who are going to do imperfect things. At the department store, on the road, at work, at home, at Church, everywhere we go.
And we can either have temper tantrums or decide, you know something I actually want to have some peace in my life. I want to enjoy my life and you know something other people's failures are not going to rob me of that peace. Other people falling short of my expectations are not going to rob me of that peace. You know something we want everyone to be just like us, we want everyone to see the world just the way we see the world and it's never going to be like that.
There's a wonderful little Proverb, if you want to read it it's in the Old Testament Proverbs chapter 29, verse 22:
An angry man stirs up dissention and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.
If we have a bit of a temper maybe today's the day we need to admit that and it's time to deal with it. It's time to get things into perspective. You see those little things that we get upset about 99.9% of them just don't matter, really they don't. I need this perhaps even more than you do.
Temper tantrums are a sure sign that we need to do some growing up. I tell you something God wants three things for our lives, a deep relationship with Him, the deep joy that comes from that relationship and for that relationship to bear good fruit in our lives, fruit that other people can be blessed through. It's how He works, that's how Gods economy runs and temper tantrums are a sure sign we haven't come to grips with the main currency of that economy, the currency of grace.
There's another Proverb, Proverbs chapter 16, verse 32:
Better a patient man than a warrior. A man who controls his temper is better than one who takes a city.
Isn't that an interesting way of putting it because a warrior, the man who takes the city, is someone who takes things by force through fighting? And Gods saying here a patient person is better than a warrior, patience is better than taking things by force, patience is better than a temper tantrum. When we control our aggression we can be such a great influence for God in the lives of other people because they see something that they want, a peace, a quiet contentment, a joy that replaces the outbursts and that's a beautiful thing; humility, a grace, a sweet fragrance of God Himself.
We do, we live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people, fact of life, full stop, end of story, never going to change this side of eternity. People are always going to be different to us, people are always going to have weaknesses that rub us the wrong way and we have a choice, either behaving like an immature adolescent and throwing our little temper tantrum or deciding, you know something I'm just not going to go round that mountain anymore.
Better a patient man than a warrior. A man who controls his temper is better than one who takes a city.
An angry man stirs up dissention and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.
I'm not going there anymore. It is time to flip the switch and say, "God I just don't want to go there anymore." Can I tell you? Sometimes it is so hard just to shut up and not say anything. Sometimes we have to bite our lips so hard that they bleed. But when we draw close to God, we let Him change us on the inside as we come to grips with His grace and we do away with the little temper tantrums.
Self control and patience are hard things to learn and there's only one way of learning them, the hard way but they're fruits of the Spirit of God that grow in us as we draw close to Him and co-operate with Him and lay down our right to perfection and lay down our right to everything we expect of other people. God wants us to have peace.