Fulfilling the Christian Calling Part 5

Well, heard, at times that shook my gourd. That rattled my cage. And I tell you what, that about tore me out of my frame. Well, there goes the neighborhood. You know, we hear these kind of statements in regards to having received kind of a shock or a surprise or the introduction of a strong or wrong element.

It was something that's upsetting, something that's disconcerting, maybe even to the point of destroying. So, with that in mind, I point this again to the framework, the definition, the state of the converted mind. That's why I covered two weeks ago the state of the converted mind. That was part four. And in the second part of the sermon, after defining the converted mind, I went into the element that has the best chance of tearing us out of that converted frame of mind. And that is the issue of anger. And I want to proceed, because I want to go with anger and deal with it in a very comprehensive way today, because there's aspects of it that we understand.

And then there's aspects of it that many times we don't understand. So, as far as fulfilling our Christian calling, this is part five. And I'm just going to kind of pick up from, in one sense, the latter part of that sermon two weeks ago. You know, we have recorded forests. We have in the record of the masses, the multitudes that followed Christ. They were not true disciples. They weren't called. But those who sat in darkness saw a great light.

And they followed Him up to a point, yes. But we also have recorded the disciples. We have the disciples recorded the true followers who, depending on which particular context you're talking about as far as connections, thought we see two figures that are mentioned. They're not contradictory because they're given in two different contexts. But 120, 500, a very small group.

But we also have recorded the statement in John 8 and verse 31. And this is a sermon that is not going to have a lot of Scripture in it. But I am going to deal very comprehensively and very extensively with the main issue, the prime enemy of the converted mind that can destroy the converted mind and tear it out of it, which is anger.

But in John 8 and verse 31, then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, if, that's a big word in impact, small word in letters, only two letters, but in impact, it's crucial. If you continue, if you continue in my word, if something takes you away from God's word, if it tears you out of God's word, you're not going to remain the disciple of Christ, obviously. And He is telling them, His disciples, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed? Again, what is most likely to keep us from continuing?

There's nothing more powerful than anger. See, we talk about the work of God in us. God is working in us. He's doing a work in us. The work of God in us is not a work of anger. Remember there in Luke 9, you recognize the account in Luke 9, where James and John's sons of thunder wanted to call fire down and burn out this little town of the Samaritans.

And Christ told them, specifically in verse 55 of Luke 9 and verse 55, He says, You know not what manner of spirit you're of. Well, what was He referencing? When He says, You know not what manner of spirit you are, what triggered that statement from Christ? They were angry. They were mad. They wanted to be able to walk away from that place and look back and see smoke rising because it was scorched and burned out. They got so mad at that little town. They just wanted to burn it out.

That anger that they had, Christ said, you do not know what manner of spirit you're of. That spirit, that attitude, that approach, that perspective was not of God. The work of God is not done in a framework of anger. In fact, anger destroys the framework. Anger is most likely to destroy that framework at any time along the way.

Anger stands the best chance of tearing a person out of a converted framework, a converted mind, or of preventing one from ever being there to begin with. Here's what anger removes. Anger is an eraser. Anger is a very acidic solvent that removes certain things. Let me give you three things that anger has a way of removing. One, reason. We've seen that with people sometimes. They get angry and they lose all reason. Number two, care. It removes care. People get angry and they don't care.

Then they don't care about something or someone. Number three, appeal. It removes appeal. Try to appeal to somebody who is really set in deep anger, heavy anger. It's basically impossible. So it's a remover, but it's also an instiller. It removes reason, care, and appeal. But here's what it will instill. Number one, it will instill vindictiveness. Number two, it will instill vengeance.

Number three, it will instill resistance. And then number four, it will instill rebellion. It will instill vindictiveness, vengeance, resistance, rebellion. And you're going to do some traveling and you know you're going to be stopping in a certain place. And so you go online and ahead of time you reserve a room. So you've got a room to stay in, a space that's waiting on you. Anger reserves a room for the devil. Notice with me, and I went to this two weeks ago, but Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, verse 27. Ephesians 4, verse 27. Don't make a reservation for the devil. Don't give room space to the devil. That's basically what Ephesians 4, 27 is saying. Neither give place to the devil. Don't create a space for him. And what's interesting and always has been to me is what that follows. It follows verse 26, verse 26, where it says, And as I said, and as I will also cover today, that it is possible to be angry and no sin be involved.

Be your angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. We have to be careful not to let something get sad in us, institutionalized, form of a grudge, or vindictiveness, or vengeance, or any of that. Because if you let the sun go down upon your wrath, in the sense that you let it become instilled in you instead of being processed properly, that's the same as reserving a room for the devil. That is how serious it is, and that's why the Apostle Paul was inspired to put these two verses together that way. Because that is the room that is reserved for the devil. We don't realize that, but he checks into it. I've often thought to myself about the instructions that were given like by Paul to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2.11. He makes this statement in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 11. He says, For we are not ignorant of his devices. Now, what would be wonderful in one sense, obviously, is if that could be 100% true across the whole Church of God with every single person, that every single one of us could 100% understand what Satan's devices are. Now, you can go through the Scripture, you can go through the accounts, and you can put together a complete layout of his devices. So we're not ignorant of his devices in that sense, but it can vary greatly from person to person as to their understanding of the devil's devices. But the point is, he has devices, and he uses them. So again, we're going to deal with the issue of anger in this Part 5, and especially as it relates to the converted mind in our Christian calling. So again, fulfilling your Christian calling, Part 5, specifically dealing with the issue of anger. Okay. I mentioned the first thing that it erases or removes. Reason. Anger. The heat of anger burns away reason. It gets lost in the smoke. True direction is lost. One's bearings are gone. A proper orientation in a situation is shot because reason retreats. It gets burned away in the heat of anger. It flees before that onslaught. And that's why we use terms like, well, he lost his head. He lost his cool. That's one I've heard a lot. He lost his cool because he lost his ability to see clearly, rationally, logically, objectively. He lost his way in the heat of emotion. And frankly, there's no hotter emotion than anger. It's the hottest emotion there is. We say, he lost it. He blew it. He blew his sack. Here's a wonderful proverb. Proverbs 16 and verse 32. Proverbs 16 and verse 32. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he that rules his spirit than he that takes the city. Oh, Alexander the Great. The great kings, the great monarchs, those great conquerors who took cities who built empires. Little old so-and-so who is slow to anger. Little old so-and-so who rules his spirit is greater than that conqueror. We don't equate it that way, humanly. But that's how God equates it. And do you think that Alexander the Great will come up in the last great day and have an empire? No way, Jose.

He will be in a position of what he would have considered a peon. He'll be a regular citizen that will have to learn to be slow to anger and to rule his spirit. Anyhow, we talk about, well, he lost it. He blew it. He blew his sack. Well, his anger clouded, his view, his anger clouded his judgment. See, anger is an intense emotion. And that is one of the easiest things to see about anger.

We have all seen and experienced been the recipients of, maybe sometimes the promoters of, the very intense emotion of anger. It torches, and the second thing I mentioned that it erases is caring. It torches caring. See, caring about someone or others, caring does require positive sensitivity. Sensitivity is not all negative. You have to be sensitive to others' needs. You have to be sensitive to others' welfare. You've got to be sensitive to their feelings, their emotions in all. I call it positive sensitivity. Caring requires positive sensitivity to others. Anger scorches that because when people get angry enough, they don't care about others' feelings.

They don't care about others' emotions. They don't care. They get seared. Anger scars and calluses. Anger has a way of desensitizing. And anger is what you could call spiritual meltdown. It removes that third thing I mentioned that it erases, appeal. It destroys potential for appeal because it hardens. It hardens. I mean, it hardens to the point that it's not just that somebody that's really caught up in the intense emotion of anger doesn't care about somebody else.

Many times they lose care about their own welfare. They will do things in their anger that can get them killed. And sometimes does get them killed. They'll do things in their anger that is totally against their own body, their own being. And in erasing that third thing, appeal, it sets one in a brittleness that is the opposite of flexibility. A brittleness that will break and shatter, but will not bend. And also, it generates anxiety. It generates anguish. An angry person is an anguished person. And they wind up filled with anxiety.

But then I also talked about how it instills things. It doesn't just, on the one hand, it removes certain things, erases them. While at the same time it's adding or instilling other things. And anger will instill one into a mood of vindictiveness. I mean, that is so common to mankind. Vindictiveness. A mood of vindictiveness. It will put people on a trail of vengeance. I mean, again, how many movies and books and themes are built around someone seeking vengeance?

They've been wrong. They've been hurt. Whatever. But, you know, they seek vengeance. It's a trail of vengeance. Which also means, if you think about it, it removes forgiveness. It removes any desire to forgive. It removes any capacity to forgive. It removes any motivation. And what's the bad about that for the Christian? If I'm unforgiving, you know your Bible. You know the Scriptures. If I am unforgiving, God is not going to forgive me.

And if I'm not forgiven, I have no eternal life waiting for me. And the equation is very much there in Scripture, and it's very plain that the unforgiving remain unforgiven. You know, people say, well, who's going to be in the lake of fire? Well, there's various ways of defining those that will be in the lake of fire someday. But one way of defining them is, everybody who's in the lake of fire, think about this.

Everybody who's in the lake of fire is unforgiven. You ever think of it that way? They're unforgiven. It doesn't mean they weren't ever unforgiven. It means either they weren't ever unforgiven because they never would repent. Which isn't going to be the case for most, practically all. It'll mainly mean that it's those who were forgiven at one time, but they became unforgiven. And because they went back into a state of unforgiveness, there's no future for them.

The lake of fire will only burn up the unforgiven. However they got back into that position. And again, anger can take you out of the converted mind. It can take you from a forgiven state and put you in an unforgiven state. Okay? I also said that it instills resistance. Some people are just passively resistant. It's a slow burn anger. It's a low-key anger.

It's a slow burn, but it's there. And it generates resistance. But then the more obvious, the more active that's instilled many times, that's planted or ingrained or produced or promoted, is just plain rebellion. Plain rebellion against the instructions and workings of God. And again, that goes back to the work that God is doing in us. It's not a work of anger. And that's why Christ told James and John, you know, you don't know what spirit you're of.

Anger erodes. It erodes God's work in us. Let me ask this question at this point. And like I said, I want to deal comprehensively with this subject because of various aspects of it. And I don't expect you to take a whole lot of notes because I've got a lot to cover. You may take some, obviously.

And you may want to go back and listen to the sermon later to absorb some of the things, because I will cover quite a bit of material. But what contains the greatest potential to generate anger in us? What contains the greatest potential to generate anger in us? That is, to tempt us, to try us, to trigger us into anger.

Of three categories I would mention. These three categories. People, animals, and things. People, animals, and things. I think it's obvious, isn't it? It's people, right? I mean, of those three things, people, animals, and things, isn't it obvious that it's people that have the greatest potential to make us angry? Now, all three can make us angry. All three can make us angry. I mean, we see people sometimes get angry at an animal. Oh, yeah! We see people get angry at a thing, an inanimate, mindless thing.

Yeah. I've seen people cuss out animals. I've seen people cuss out things, as they say. But everyone noticed a big difference between the three? You don't hold a grudge against animals, unless it's Moby Dick, you know, Captain Ahab and all of that.

But you don't hold a grudge against animals, generally. You can, but not too often. And you sure don't hold a grudge against things. You might clobber it with a hammer, you know, to vent your anger on it with a hammer. But you've ended your anger on that thing, and you know it's a thing. And you may bust it and not have the thing anymore, whatever, but you don't hold a grudge against it.

Because you basically vent your anger, and you feel this is having done, and you vent, and it goes away, and you move on. But we then, or give place to our anger with people, and it doesn't tend to go away. It tends to internalize, and then that becomes deadly. It not only remains, but this is why it says, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. And it's really, again, speaking to not letting anger become internalized in you, because it becomes part of you.

It becomes part of your fiber. It becomes a grudge. It becomes a hot button. It becomes a trigger. It becomes something that Satan can push, or punch, or pull. It sets up a permanent residence in you. It gets firmly entrenched. It gets engroved in us. It grooves the channel. And any time we get on memory lane and go back down that path to that which has become internalized in us, we feel our emotion of anger rising just at the memory of how we were done wrong, or whatever.

Whatever the crux of it was. And guess what anger does? It manipulates us.

The devil looks for ways to leverage us. He looks for ways to have whatever measure of control, or influence, or impact he can on us. And he knows the power of anger that has become internalized, and how to push that button, how to pull that trigger. It can be used to manipulate us.

We have to control our anger. Or it controls us.

And there's no getting around that. James and John had tempers. I don't know if you would say they were angry people, but they definitely had a lot of anger. They were temperamental. But you don't get that feeling about John whatsoever when you read the Gospel of John, his nature, because he got on top of it. So did James. They came to control their anger so it wouldn't control them. They came to a converted mind. And they overcame and they controlled their anger rather than have their anger either prevent them having a converted mind or tear them out of a converted mind. I've known in my lifetime people have built a baggage of anger. Not just over a span of years, but I have known people who built a baggage of anger over their whole lifetime, an entire lifetime. And I've known people that if somebody has asked me, would you describe so and so in the most accurate definition you can, what are they a composite of? Good, bad, and ugly. Just tell me, what's their composition? What are they a composite of? And I'll say grudges, hard feelings, vile, and bitterness. Sadly, I have known people whom you could describe their make-up, their lives, being an endless series of grudges and hard feelings and vile and bitterness, all generated through the avenue of anger. Because again, it's a major thoroughfare in the traffic of carnality. And sadly, anger can be the high road to hell. It causes a lot of wrecks. And I mean, literally out here on the highways, as I've said before, it does cause a lot of wrecks and also the classic cases of road rage. But it does cause a lot of wrecks and eventually leads to the biggest wreck of all. So there's anger at things, there's anger at people, there's anger at animals, there's anger at life, and guess what? I mean, when you see someone, and again, many times, in our minds, and what we know, in our memories, some of these statements, we can put people's faces on them. And names on them. And we've known people, we may know people, who are just angry. And they're angry at things, and they're angry at animals, angry at people, angry at life, and guess what? Because of such a pattern of anger, automatic way of operating sooner or later, eventually, guess what? They're angry at God. I've known people. I've known people that were once in the church, who got angry at God and left.

They got angry at God, and they left. And, you know, ideas about life is not fair. Well, that's true. Life isn't fair. Whoever said that life is totally fair. Anybody that thinks life is totally fair is not dealing with reality. Life is not fair. Yeah, so what are you going to do about it? How are you going to process that?

This is not fair. Well, whoever said it was fair, you have to deal with a lot of unfairness in life. Well, if I were God, and there's something that's interesting, and I'd like to speak on it more in a future time, but there are those who pull God down into every single decision that's made of the zillion and zillion and zillion decisions that are done on this planet.

They pull God down into every one and make Him responsible for either allowing it or doing it. That is not accurate. There are so many things we do ourselves, and God is not taking a part in it in any sense. There are so many things that are done by human will, human free will, and that God is aware. But it's us doing it. But the problem is, and here's where the problem comes in many times, once the person sees God as involved in every single thing that goes on, then they start holding God responsible for what happens.

And then they become fertile ground for the doubts of Satan. They become fertile ground for thinking, okay, God's not fair. Why did He do this and He didn't do that? Or why did He allow this but He didn't allow that? And they get into this thing where Satan finds fertile ground to hold God responsible. God is not fair. And because God is not fair, I'm angry. I'm angry with God. One of the instructive things to me about the book of Jonah, it's not the only thing, obviously.

And it's not the full story of the book of Jonah. But there had to be a certain amount of anger in Jonah. There had to be a certain amount of internalized anger in him. He had to have been, at least, up to some point, somewhat of an angry type person. He had to have carried a lot of baggage with him in that sense. He wasn't the most forgiving type person either when you read the account. And evidently, he had never come fully to grips with that issue. He had never faithfully faced it like he really should have. We know he resisted, which was rebellion against God. He did run from him. We know that. You got the account.

And it did take the personal, very close, right up close and personal examination of the inside of a fish's belly, to convince him he had to go do the job, that there was no way he was getting out of it. He had to go do it. And then, when it was all said and done, you read the account that's right there in your Bible. When it was all said and done, look at how angry he got with God. Jonah, do you do well to be mad? Do you do well to be angry?

You're darn tootin' I do well to be mad. Mad to death, if I have to be. I mean, look at his attitude. It was pointing towards God. Look at his attitude. He was angry with God. That's one thing that's bad enough to hold a grudge of being angry towards another human being, but boy, like I said, don't get in a fight with God. There is no chance of winning your carnal victory, because there will be no such thing if you get angry with God.

You're not going to win. But it's just interesting how that, as I have said, I hope, you know, if you go by the written record, if that was the state of Jonah for the rest of his life, don't expect to see him in the first resurrection. You won't. If that was his state of mind for the rest of his life, and he died in that state, he died in a deep spirit of anger, I'm hoping and praying that even though that's the final written record we have, obviously his life went on after that.

I'm hoping that he truly came to his senses, he repented, and got on top of it, and controlled it, and that he'll be in the first resurrection. But guess what? You and I will have to wait till that time to see. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know what happened after that during the rest of his life. But we will know someday, and hopefully if we see him in the first resurrection, we will know he got on top of it. That he repented of it.

That he conquered it. See, anger, that's an issue and an element in the life of each of us which God expects us to come to grips with. Now, we all know that, okay, you've got a large family, or a smaller family, but you've got a family of extended family members. You know who you have to tip the toy around, and you know who you can say about anything to, and never have to worry about a blowback from them.

I mean, one of the things is, you know the temperaments, you know the emotions, you know the makeups enough, you know who, well, you don't dare push his buttons, or, well, this person is so absorbent of everything and can handle anything that comes their way. We know who tends to deal with anger, and who doesn't. But we also know what tends to get people angry, you know the people we know.

We also know how much it takes to get them angry. But everyone has some measure of that capacity. It can range from great capacity to get angry, to very, you know, you've got to really push him, and you've got to really push him to get him mad. But everybody has that in their make-up to some degree, and God expects us to come to grips with it.

And you know what? The converted person does. That's one of the things we come to grip with as a converted person. The person that's wanting to be converted comes to grips with that. The person who desires deep conversion. Say, I know I'm converted, but I'm not as converted as I want to be. I know I'm converted, but I want to be more deeply converted than what I am. And frankly, I like to view it that one reason God has given me an extension of life is so that my conversion, I can have an opportunity to deepen that conversion.

That's a worthy goal, and that's the obvious goal that every one of us, as the converted person of God, should have. That we're not satisfied with the level of conversion we have, we want it to go deeper. Think about how God has provided us the assistance we need through, number one, His Spirit. That Spirit is an assistance to us.

It assists us. His Spirit assists us. That energy assists us. We have His Word, don't we? And we have His ministry. We have His ministry that teaches, that is to help equip the saints for service and to teach answers and understanding. And we have His church. We have fellowship. We have each other, provoking to good works, learning from each other, strengthening each other. Anger is an intense feeling. It is an intense emotion. If anger is anything, it's intense. It requires, it demands, it necessitates awareness, vigilance, diligence, effort and consistency. And it requires proper processing. Jonah did not process his anger properly.

What anger comes from, and again, what anger comes from, why does Paul say, Be you angry and sin not? Which is the same as saying, there's such a thing as anger that does not involve sin. Anger comes from an ability, a capacity to feel strongly and to feel deeply. Are we supposed to feel strongly? Yeah. Are we supposed to feel deeply? Yeah. That is not wrong. But where anger goes wrong, why anger goes wrong, is due to the track that we put it on or that we run it on.

And here's where we see it being utilized, or the track it runs on. We put it, and I say put it, I'm talking about naturally, carnally, we put it on a personal, selfish, self-centered track that this ability or capacity to feel strongly and deeply is pointed in the wrong direction toward a wrong purpose, to serve a wrong purpose. It has a wrong perspective. What do I mean? We use it consciously or unconsciously to serve self, to protect our self.

What do I mean? Well, that we feel strongly about self. That's what our strong and intense feeling is naturally focused upon. People feel very strongly about themselves. They feel very intensely about themselves. They're very protective of self. We all know that, don't we? And of that which we consider to be an extension of self. Again, what do I mean? Well, we prick most easily and quickly when we perceive that it's an attack on us. Or, I'm being slighted. I'm being snubbed. Oh, you're inferring that against me? See, what it boils down to is it's a hurt to self.

It's an insult to self. It's a neglect to self. It's an unfairness to self. It's an affront to self. And that serves a strong and intense feeling in us faster than anything. It awakens and activates our capacity to feel deeply and strongly and intensely faster and quicker than anything. And why is this so? Because our pride is pricked. I've spent a lifetime dealing with broken relationships. I've spent a lifetime dealing with broken marriages.

I've spent a lifetime, not that my lifetime, that's all involved, I don't mean that. But all through my life, broken marriages have been part of the grist meal. Broken relationships, part of the grist meal. Because pride gets pricked. Ego has egg thrown on it. Vanity gets vandalized. And then you have the fallout. You have the results. And since we, by our natural, carnal nature, are pointed toward and protective of self, I mean, that just comes natural. It's not like something weird or abnormal. It does come natural. And since such natural bent in us is automatically magnified by Satan every chance he gets, you know what we do?

We misuse this capacity. We misuse it. So we rise up in feelings and say, I don't deserve this. I don't deserve this. This is not fair. Frankly, I don't have to take this. Those are the reactions that, you know, just normally rise with us. And what we're really responding and reacting to, what's really moving, is first and foremost, the first consideration instinctively and automatically is self. See, our capacity for strong and powerful and intense signaling is activated instead in motion by self, over regard to self.

And that's due to a self-oriented emotion, self-oriented emotion, a self-directed motivation. And that's the selfishness, the way of get versus the way of give. And that's what makes it so wrong. Be you angry and sin not. Anger itself is not sin. The capacity for it is not sin. But it's so easy for sin to be involved because self is what makes it so wrong.

See, it's not normally, generally, a strong, powerful, intense feeling over wrongdoing. It's not generally a powerful feeling over the neglect of godly principles. It's not generally over the hurt done to another human being. It's a focus on self. And that is why God says, think about God's anecdotes. Think about why God would say certain things that He says like suffer wrongdoing. Suffer wrongdoing. That which is done to you. Suffer it. Bear with it. Suffer for righteousness sake as you do the right thing. Because as you do the right thing many times, you pay a price for it.

And so, God tells us suffer for righteousness sake. And statements like render no evil for evil. Render no evil for evil. Because that is how you begin to break the focus on self. That's how you begin to break the misuse of that capacity for anger. Self uses a good capacity. Hear me right.

The capacity for anger is a good capacity. God put it there. I'll get to that. But it's a good capacity. But self uses a good capacity to a wrong and selfish end. And God gives us these statements and instructions because that's how we begin to run this capacity on a different track. We quit taking everything personally.

You ever have somebody do something and they were doing it personally? What I'm saying is they were snubbing, you were sliding, you were whatever. And you knew that they knew what they were doing. They did it. They intended to do it. They wanted you to know that they were doing it. They wanted you to feel snub. They wanted you to feel slighted. And they want you to take it personally.

But they don't know what to do when you learn how not to take those things personally. They can't thwart them. And there are those again who would try to stir us, to prick us, to trigger us, to set us up, to set us off, to manipulate us, and control us through your anger. If you know an angry person, and I'm talking about somebody uncalled who's not trying to deal with it, it runs them, it controls them. You know that there are things that if you choose to do it, you can set them off. You can get them rolling. Like a train wreck, you know, going down the tracks. You know.

But you know, when we no longer try to protect pride, think about this.

When we no longer try to protect pride, when we no longer feel a need to, when we no longer try to protect ego, when we realize it's not really necessary, it's unnecessary to try to protect it. It doesn't matter. When we come to realize, frankly, how empty and useless vanity is, that it's not lasting. It has no future. We begin to redirect our focus.

And that is the true beginning of changing and redirecting our focus, and we begin to feel a certain freedom from self. I want to go back to John 8, and I read verse 31, John 8, and I read where Christ said, If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed? We're looking at something that is very much a part of His word today.

And the corollary to that is, you're continuing in my word, then you're my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. You begin to have a certain freedom from self and the misuse of anger. The truth does truly set us free. And we need a certain freedom from self and absolutely a freedom from the misuse of anger. And guess what? That capacity to feel deeply and powerfully and intensely is still there.

Read the Psalms. Read David's Psalms. Talk about feeling deeply and strongly and intensely. The capacity to feel deeply and strongly and intensely is still there. You don't lose any of that. That's not diminished one bit, one iota, but there's a godly shift that takes place. There's a godly focus that takes place and is taking place. You find yourself still getting angry, but you find yourself, yes, you find yourself angry at times, but now it's different.

There is a difference. You're angry at wrongdoing. I get angry at wrongdoing. When I say wrongdoing, yeah, I get angry at it. May not be able to do anything about it right now, but someday I will be able to. But you're angry at the neglect of God's principles and God's ways. You go over to nations where there's still starvation going on. And when they won't even kill the rodents, because that might be old grandpa, where they believe in reincarnation.

He was a real rat in real life, and so that rat right there could be old grandpa that's come back. And we don't dare kill him. And where people are starving, and they lose a third to half of their grain to rodents, to varmint, but they won't kill the hurt that that false religion and wrongdoing is doing, because you see a starving child, that's not easy to look at.

No, you're angry at the neglect of God's principles and God's ways. You're angry at the hurt and pain that sin produces. You're angry at sin. I don't want to have an attitude of acceptance of sin. I want to be angry at sin. Not at the people, per se, but at sin.

You're angry at unrighteousness. And guess why? Do you ever get angry at the sin you see in yourself? Do you ever get angry at unrighteousness in yourself? Yeah. Which is better? To get angry at what you see wrong in yourself or not be angry at it? I think we know the answer, don't we? Anger helps to serve a purpose of getting rid of what's wrong with it. You know, we see something in ourself that we're angry at because it's wrong and shouldn't be there. That helps to propel us to get rid of it. We're angry at wrongs and wrongdoing.

See, the focus is now different. It's still anger. It's still that capacity. But the focus is different. The direction is now different. And you know what we refer to when we refer to that kind of anger? We refer to it as righteous indignation. There's a lot of indignation that's not righteous. But what I'm talking about, using that capacity for anger, deep, intense feeling, is righteous indignation. It's godly anger. It's godly wrath.

Strong feelings for the things of God, for what's good and right and lasting. You know, it's a freedom when we cease to fill a need to stand up for self. Again, think about that. If I don't feel like I've got to stand up for self, I'm free from that feeling of having to stand up for self. That's a freedom. That's a relief. And when we lose that feeling that I've got to stand up for self, well, if I don't stand up for me, who will?

You know, when we lose that feeling of the need to stand up for self, and we cease standing up for self, we begin to distinguish between standing up for self and standing up for the things of God. Martyrs died for the things of God. They were strong men and women, convicted, dedicated, powerful in their feelings, the depth of their feelings, the intensity, and very angry at the wrong things.

Standing up for Godly things, even to the point of being martyred. You know, we begin to distinguish between feeling strongly and intensely about self and God. There's a difference.

We diminish in anger that has stimulated by self. And maybe we were called and we were known in our family as a very angry person. And then the time came that family members would say, you should have known Him back before God worked on Him. Boy, He was an angry person, and now He has stoled mild and soothing to be around. Oh, He can still get angry, but He doesn't get angry at the same things.

He's mature, responsible with His anger.

See, we diminish in the activation of this strong capacity to feel deeply about self, and we grow in its Godly use. Godly use. Think about it. God is the woman who built into us this capacity to feel deeply and strongly and intensely. Christ said, the zeal of your house has eaten me up. Christ is the one that overturned the money changer's tables. Tried about the sheep and all. Christ is the one in Matthew 23 in anger who indicted the Pharisees, the religious leaders. Christ could get angry, but never, ever, not even one time was there ever sin involved in His anger. It's for the furtherance of good. God put it there. It's for the attachment to the proper things, because again, it comes from the capacity to feel deeply and strongly and intensely, and that's what attaches us to the things of God. And that's what gives us a Godly jealousy in latching on and in lasting, for preserving, for promoting, for perpetuating, for the intense rejection and resistance to the wrong things, for proper anger, properly processed, again, righteous indignation. For the good and benefit of ourselves and others, and again, used properly, it lets us crank things up to a higher level with a greater resolve.

God wants people who can feel deeply. He wants people, children, who can feel intensely, who can feel strongly, and He backs that up. He supports that. Again, He's the one who built into us this capacity to feel deeply like that. And it is to serve a good for us and for others, and to serve the purposes of God. There's true benefit in it. See, man is the one who has abused it. Think about it. The first murder was an act of anger that was full of sin when Cain rose up and killed Abel.

And it was all based off of self. It was all based off of self. Man is the one who has abused and misused it in service to self and protecting and promoting self and serving self. And that's what gives the word anger the bad name that it generally has.

Think about it in society. Think about it in life. Anger generally has a negative connotation, doesn't it? It has a bad name, a bad reputation. And the main reason is because the majority, the vast overwhelming majority of the time, anger, that whole capacity has been so abused and so misused and so misdirected. And again, Satan is the one who has magnified that abuse and misused every chance he could and can. He understands the power of it.

So, I don't reject anger. I would say to you, don't reject anger, per se. Reject the wrong use. Learn to use it properly. Don't reject the capacity to feel strongly. How do you become a better person if you feel less strong about the things of God? How do you become a better vessel in God's hands if you say you won't feel as strongly about things as you do? You won't feel as deeply about them. You won't feel as intensely about them. How do you improve yourself as an instrument in God's hands? You do not. You diminish. We don't reject that capacity to feel even more deeply, more intensely, more powerfully, is good.

But we must learn to use it properly. Don't reject the capacity. Don't stifle it. Don't destroy it. Not that you could completely destroy it anyway, it's just you would go into misuse with it. But learn to control and direct it for good, for furtherance of God's plans and purposes with us and others. We're going to have to be in control. See, there's where the freedom comes in. We learn how to be in control, how not to be subject to it, to where somebody thinks, well, I can manipulate him through anger and they find out it doesn't work. That they cannot... they say, well, I pushed the right buttons and they didn't work. It must be disconnected.

I pulled the right triggers and it didn't work. It must be disconnected. I thought for sure this would get him angry and... you know when two boxers, two heavyweights, middleweights, lightweights, doesn't matter, when two boxers are going to ring to fight, the boxers know that the one thing they can't really afford to do, and this may sound odd, but they cannot afford to get angry and lose their temper. Why? Because then they will react versus pro-act and they're more likely to get knocked out or get beaten.

They stay more in control of their punches, their coordination, everything. Oh, you can get a surge of energy with the anger. But Ali always tried to get his opponent angry. That's one reason he trash-talked like he did. Ali didn't get angry. He kept control of that in the ring, but he tried to get his opponent angry because he knew he would have advantage over him.

And Satan knows if he can get us angry and do, he takes advantage of us. People that would want to manipulate you, they know that they can get you angry that then they can manipulate you. But when they find out, oh, those buttons I'm pushing, those triggers I'm pulling that should work, they don't work. They've evidently been disconnected because we've learned how to control it. We've learned how to direct it for good, for the furtherance of God's plans and purposes.

We've learned how to be in control and how to make it subject to us. Learn how not to be at its mercy. Learn how not to be manipulated by it. And learn how to glorify God with it through the proper use of this capacity.

Learn how to glorify God with it. Deep, deep feeling, strong feeling, intense feeling. And how do you know when you're truly doing that? Well, guess what? It brings no harm to others. It brings no harm to others. You're standing up for God and the welfare of others, not staff. And how do you know when this is what you're truly doing? Well, think about it. Your actions are promoting no evil. There's no evil being promoted by your actions. Evil is not furthered by you and what you're doing. The staying of the situation is not made worse by your presence in it. Know them by their fruits.

You can judge it by the effects, the fruits. Your contribution doesn't further evil. Your actions don't push, promote, or magnify evil design. In any sense, can you agree? And your anger is a preserving. It is a preserving and promoting force for the right and proper things of God.

It's, again, an intense feeling for such. It's a power for spiritual productivity, design, and product. And, again, this is something never to lose sight of.

When a person thinks, well, what God wants is me to be a totally passive individual. And I'll speak to that subject someday, God willing. But God wants me to be a totally passive, non-entity type being. No, He doesn't. No, He doesn't. One's innate ability or capacity to feel proper passion and feel deeply and strongly and intensely. That's of God. That's by His design. It's an only natural part of our makeup, of our fiber. And God said of all that He made. I mean, you've got the statement there in Genesis 1.31. And if you look at the Hebrew wording, what it says, it is very good. Not just good, it is very good. The human being, the creation of male and female, and the capacities that we have. The capacity is not the problem. It's a power.

But like with all powers, proper use through proper direction and control have to be used. And guess why? We're not born knowing how to do all of that. It has to be learned. It's got to be learned. It's got to be exercised. Because what the natural is, is to use things like that that cause abuse or harm through misuse, through lack of direction and control. But again, to kill that capacity is not the answer. To stifle that capacity is not the answer. Because it's something of God that's put there. But learning how to use it properly. I want you to think about this. Again, I said you read the Psalms and you read what David, what the strong, intense feelings and all that he had. You know, to try to diminish our capacity to feel things deeply and intensely, and to be successful in doing that, you know what it does? You say, okay, I don't want to feel things as strongly or as deeply or intensely. I'm going to shallow that out. I'm going to diminish that. And let's say you're successful. Guess what you've just done? You have diminished your capacity to live fully as a vital and viable being. Because those who cannot feel deeply and intensely are only half alive, if that. God didn't call us just to be very passive individuals with whole harm, this or that. I mean, just look at what we're called to live and be. God wants us to be excited. God wants us to find life interesting. He wants us to find life to be rich and enjoyable, love, joy, peace and all. Life abundant. Those who cannot feel deeply and intensely cannot attach powerfully to life. I dealt with someone not too awfully long ago who doesn't want to live forever. They don't want to live forever. They don't feel deeply, they don't feel strongly, they don't feel intensely about life anymore.

They finished this life. They had no desire for going on into eternal life. Those who cannot feel deeply and intensely cannot attach powerfully to life. They're more detached, they're more disconnected, they're not as motivated. They don't get as fully caught up in the fiber and meaning of life. Life is not as real to them as it should be. Life has no chance to be as full and meaningful to them as it should be and could be. Their connections are weak because this capacity is weak. Again, anger is an intense emotion that is generated out of the capacity to feel deeply and strongly and intensely about things. And the abuse of this capacity is what translates into wrong anger. The use of this capacity to promote the wrong things is the problem. That's where the problem comes in.

Using it to protect, preserve, and promote self is never intended. And it's to be that behind anger is what makes it so wrong and gives it a bad name. It has to be changed. That's what has to be revamped.

You won't hear this kind of sermon from Joel Osteen, or others like him, or Joyce Myers. Because what I'm talking about goes to the heart and core of our fiber and our makeup, and what is there that's got to be handled properly, and what we don't give room for, and also the issue of the work and the effort and the desire on focus and direction and purpose and use and timing and control to switch off the self to God, and use it to glorify Him and serve Him and His things, because that capacity is His design. Again, a deep and intense feeling for the spiritual things of God. And there's one other area that I have to cover, because I said I wanted to deal with this comprehensively. A deep and intense feeling for the spiritual things of God, serving the proper design and purpose through such. And when anger rises up in the form of righteous indignation, right and proper in reason and in purpose and in proportion, in direction, in timing and control, there's a challenge that requires a lot of thought and a lot of effort and a lot of learning. It is shifted off of a basis of the foundation of self to a foundation of what's right, a foundation of good, a foundation of God. But even in that, there's a hidden danger for the unwary, and that needs exposure and explanation. So even though I will go a bit over the time I usually do, I still need to address this. As we begin to practice our self in the righteousness of God, guess what? Many times we begin to feel righteous. We know we're doing right things. We know we're making good efforts and right efforts. And we begin to feel, you know, kind of righteous, which I guess up to a point, that's not necessarily bad. But we can begin to see ourselves as righteous unto ourselves. Righteous in and of ourselves, righteous unto ourselves. And really, in a sense, forget that any goodness or righteousness in us is what God is able through our yield and disincorporation with Him and His power to put in us.

That's why it says that our righteousness is often through Christ. You would find that in 2 Corinthians 5.21.

But we begin to feel what? We begin to feel self-righteous.

See, that's one of the things that God's people can get trapped in if they're not careful. We can begin to feel self-righteous. And the second insidious thing is, guess what? Self is back. And because self is back in the picture, and we now think self is fine, that it is righteous, that now somehow righteousness can and does originate out or from us in some capacity. Our capacity to feel strongly is, once again, misdirected to promote and protect this new self, this righteous self, that is now good. It's insidious. It is slick. It is subtle. But it's clear. It occurs.

And we're back once again, kind of where we were to begin with, only in a different scenario with a different excuse, a different cover. Because wrong and improper anger is back, and it is once again being used to serve self. And it's almost like, I am righteous. How dare you? How dare you impugn my motives? How dare you impugn my righteousness? Don't you know that I am righteous? How dare you infringe upon my righteousness? How dare you attack me? How dare you affront my godliness? Don't you know how godly I am? Why, you imbecile? You wouldn't know righteousness if it sat on you, if it smacked you right in the face. And so, a person has unconsciously transferred things back to a basis of self without even realizing it. I dealt in recent times with an individual who is quite self-righteous, and he broke off voluntarily on his part, broke off fellowship with us, with the assembly of God. Because he is more righteous than the church is. Self-righteousness. And he doesn't fellowship with us anymore.

Self-righteousness. And we are once again taking things personally, as he did and does. Because the person becomes self-righteous, and they transferred the righteousness of God to self, and now once again protecting and promoting self, only with a different disguise or cover. And this is why, and have you ever noticed, how easily angered a self-righteous person is? Don't you think about that just for a moment? Have you ever noticed how easily angered a self-righteous person is? They are very easily angered in most cases. And this is why we all as Christians, seeking the righteousness of God and not our own righteousness, must always ask ourselves in regard to anger. Period. Why am I angry? At what am I angry? What's the purpose, the reason for my anger? And how am I discharging and processing it? See, this capacity utilized properly serves great good, but used wrongly causes great harm. And that's why anger is a highway or an avenue to travel very sparingly, and even then with care and control, great caution, because the highway of life is strewn with wreck after wreck caused by anger. Anger is an avenue that we can so easily go arrive with. Definitely in our carnal state, but even in our converted state, we have to be very careful because we can. And that's all the reason to travel it very sparingly and carefully, because it will not only keep us out of a lot of wrecks along the way, but it's going to help ensure the successful completion of our calling, the fulfillment of our Christian calling, which requires maintaining the converted mind.