I'M SO MAD I COULD SLAP YOUR FACE!

February, the month of the year that is dedicated to the heart. Yet out of the same heart, flows love, as well as wickedness. Who can really know it? With the same heart a person can fall in love, and later can harbor ill will or even hate for the person that they once loved and cared for. The heart can deceive as well as love. Anger plays a major role in turning a heart once filled with love, into a heart that is stirred, to do wrong. Have you ever been so mad at someone that you felt like slapping their face? Your anger towards them escalated from a disagreement or quarrel to a full blown-out verbal fight! We can all possess the ability or motives to respond in this way, given the right situation. However, God’s Word teaches us that conflicts in us come from the wrong desires that battle within our hearts and is the result of our sinful nature.

The sin in us can threaten our securities and our happiness is at stake which causes our focus to be misplaced. It is at that moment that God is ignored and we take matters into our own hands unless we have trained our minds to be set on God and what He has instructed us to do in those situations.

Sometimes, our good desires can be escalated to reach a sinful retaliation if we do not deal with our emotions and feelings and making the choice to put them to death in us. Truth becomes concealed as though we did not even know it or worse, twisted. Our listening shuts down and we are not understood, nor do we understand the other person. Thus the big blow out!

There are scores of examples of conflict in Scripture and how they were handled properly and improperly. Some problems seem so complex, that it can give an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and despair. That is because they are intertwined with different opinions and levels of individual responsibility for their part in the conflict.  There may be so much hurt and communication problems, that it may seem that the parties involved, simply give up, in trying to bring peace in them. However, when we stop looking at the problem and set our focus on the resolution, then any conflict can be resolved. Most problems have only a few simple components to them, and can be isolated and dealt with, if the ones involved are willing to make the effort and rectify them.

The Bible is very clear in what causes fights and quarrels. James 4:1-3 tells us that, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures".

We must remember, that as a Christian and ambassador of Christ, we are to precede any endeavor with the "Fruits of the Spirit" and where love is our focus. We must have the proper motives before we can be the peacemakers that we are told to be, in order to resolve any conflict. The problem is not that we don’t know how in most cases; but that we don’t want to, and God will always deal with us in those areas of disobedience.

Forgiveness is a direct command and mandate from God to His Children. It is something extremely special which we are given, and something precious we are to replicate to others. It is not easy. It requires the practice of maturity, the patience to allow the process to unfold, and the tact to endure it.

When anger has escalated to the point that someone wants to physically slap the other person, then that person has gone way overboard in dealing with their own heart sin and may need more help than the one they want to slap. God tells us to be angry and sin not. That means that we should never allow our anger to reach the point that it causes us to break His laws. Our anger should be controlled by our love for each other and not overtake us and cause us to sin. Proverbs 10:24 says, “What the wicked dreads will overtake him; what the righteous desire will be granted”.  So always make your desires to be that of righteousness, and God will honor you for it!

The bottom line is to desire that which is right. Make your mind up today before you break friendship or fellowship with someone, that you will not allow anything to separate you from doing the will of God. For, if your mind is not made up before hand, you will slip and do that which is wrong. Forgiveness is always complete, so that we as Christians, are released from our personal desire for retribution. Forgiveness is costly, yet, there is no cost we could ever incur that could compare with what we cost Him. When we put forgiveness into practice in our relationships, whether with family, friends, church folk, or our coworkers, we refocus our plans for our pain to God's plan, and God's ways. So, our pain becomes relieved, and peace is granted to us whether or not the other person chooses God’s way or not. Then we can honestly say, that we have done all that we could in that situation.

Loving on you today!
Bren