Melting the Anger Iceberg - Self Deception Series 28 – Purity 1117

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a snow-covered pathway running through the pines comes to us from the distant past and yours truly as I captured this foreboding yet tranquil scene while working near the Charleston State Forest outside of Esperance, New York, back on February 7th, 2020. And that brings us to our—

well, no, that doesn't bring us to our current series. There we go.

Well, it's Thursday, although, and we are very much still in the summer season. I am intentionally sharing today's snowy scene for several reasons. One, it shows a pathway of sorts, and I love to share photos of pathways on Thursday as a visual reminder. And encouragement to get on or to stay on the path of Christian discipleship. Thursday was the day of the week I decided to go into recovery for my addiction to alcohol at a Christian recovery program in 2015, and the rest is M.t. for Christ history as the Lord has progressively led me in victory and freedom ever since. So we share photos of Pathways to remind, to remember the journey remind myself that I'm still walking it out and to encourage others to follow the Lord to find or to continue theirs. The second reason that I share that photo is that it is a beautiful scene of God's creation and it gives him glory. He made this moment and I was just fortunate to be there. The third reason is to prompt us to be thankful for that moment the beauty, my life then, my life now, and the fact that it is summer currently and I don't have to shovel snow, prayerfully, for many months. And the last reason I share this photo has to do with how things can lie beneath the surface of what we can't see. The snow has covered the road in this photo. I can tell you that this particular road is a dirt and gravel road, but you really couldn't know that from looking at this photo. If you didn't know better, you could think that the road before you was a stretch of some high-quality blacktop with a pair of yellow painted lines running right down the middle. But you wouldn't— but you would be wrong because the snow is hiding the truth. Sometimes what we can see is lying to us because we don't see what's lying beneath the surface. And that brings us to our current series on self-deception, where we have to— we have decided to investigate some of the ways we deceive ourselves by walking through Step 2, Deception Versus Truth, of the Steps to Freedom in Christ, to see what ways we have been deceived by the world and ourselves, and in what ways we have wrongly defended ourselves. So today we present the fifth of the ways to wrongly defend yourself. Number 5: displaced anger. The Steps to Freedom in Christ describes displaced anger as taking out frustrations on innocent people. I'm pretty sure that we have all been guilty of displacing our anger as a defense mechanism at some time in our lives. Anger can be a red-hot emotion that can cause us to lose our cool and blow our tops, reacting with a unkind word of or action. We can slowly or suddenly get as mad as hell until we are tempted to not take this anymore and lash out at the object of our, of our ire, or at an innocent bystander who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and just happened to be the one to set off the hair trigger that sent us off half-cocked into a fit of fury. Causing us to either be filled with regret and sent to apologize, or sent us further into our pride and to not apologize, making our victim carry the load and wonder why their words or action caused such a response. Our angry response could be directed toward the right person, quote unquote, because they triggered us. But if we could look deeper into the situation, we might discover that there was a lot more beneath the surface of the anger that we can't see. We could see that this red-hot anger source was actually ice cold, as the anger was only the tip of the iceberg, a visual manifestation of what was a large mass of complex, complex factors and emotions. I share the following diagram on the blog today, uh, to show how anger can have many contributing factors and emotions that cause it to rise to the top. And we have a photo today of the anger iceberg. Um, our diagram, uh, shows us anger, but when we look below the surface, we see sadness, stress, helplessness, disappointment, frustration, regret, guilt, grief, and many other feelings that lie below the surface and that contribute to the anger that has risen up into our experience. So when we or someone else is coming across as angry— as being angry, we should try to examine what is going on in their lives that is causing the anger beyond the triggering event. We have to realize that hurt people hurt people, and the angry outburst we see is just a symptom of a larger problem. Physical pain or discomfort is lying under the surface. We should see a doctor or seek other remedies that will heal us. If it is mental or emotional pain, we should seek the care and company of professionals, friends, or family that can help us to process the pain and to work out a plan to change things or change the way we our thinking that is causing us emotional distress. In the past, I was a highly reactive person and anger was part of my problems. Fortunately, the Lord came into my life to show me that I was not thinking right and I was not living right according to His Word, and I was reaping the bad harvest for all the bad seed that I had planted. My ideas about life were selfish and based on the lies of the world system. My behaviors were selfish and went against God's word. It was no wonder I didn't have peace. I was going against everything that was good and holy. I chose to sin, and so I chose to suffer. And when I suffered, I got angry and raged against the machine or anyone who just happened to be nearby when things didn't go my way. I regretted every instance of my angry outburst, and after coming to Christ, I sought to repent of my worldly ways and renewed my mind with God's Word. I became a student of the Prince of Peace, and as I have followed him, the fruit of peace, patience, and self-control has grown in my life. I had to stop planting bad seed and start living according to God's ways, and I have traveled with— and as I have traveled with him, The good seeds I received from him have sprouted and grown into a transformed life of freedom, joy, and peace. So let's keep walking and talking with God. He can melt the anger iceberg that help— and help you to experience the living waters of a life in the Spirit where fear is replaced with confidence, sadness is replaced with joy, and anger replaced with peace. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come to us from the section on Affliction, Discipline, Chastisement, and Trials. And today's verses are Romans 11:33-36 from the New Living Translation. And the word of God says, oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand His decisions and His ways! For who can know the LORD's thoughts? Who knows enough to give Him advice? And who has given Him so much that He needs to pay it back? For everything comes from Him, and exists by His power, and is intended for His glory. All glory to Him forever!

Amen.

Today's verses fall under the 14th point of our Counseling Reference Guides resource section on Affliction, Discipline, Chastisement, and Trials. And that 14th point is: We can't always comprehend God's ways as he, in his wisdom, carries out his plan. Today's verses encourage us to recognize the greatness of God's wisdom and the impossibility of trying to understand his decisions and ways. While we can understand much about God's Kingdom by reading His Word and following His precepts and wisdom for life, we will not understand everything. We have to realize that is a big part of our relationship with Him. Not knowing everything perfectly and still choosing to trust God is what our faith is all about. While we can explain the Gospel of Jesus Christ and understand quote-unquote, how it works, because God has revealed its truth to us, it is foolishness to those who are perishing. If we are honest, we have to admit that the idea that a man dying on a cross over 2,000 years ago has a lot to do with my eternal destination and the meaning and purpose of life doesn't really make sense. There doesn't seem to be a causal relationship here, but God has revealed to us the truth. Uh, that Jesus was more than just a man, just some man. Jesus is the Messiah, and if we put our faith in him, we are accepted into God's kingdom for eternity right now. God's word also informs us that he is sovereign and is shaping history towards a new heaven and a new earth. But the suffering of this world, the uncertainty of the time of Christ's return, and some of the hard or mysterious passages in the Bible can really stretch the limits of our comprehension and cause us to lament because we cannot understand why things have to be this way. While we can know some things, we will not know everything, and in order to have peace, we have to realize that God's ways are higher than our ways. We have to trust that He is good and that He is trustworthy to do what is right. If we know we are saved through faith in Jesus, we We have to rest in that knowledge and know that if God was good enough to show us this mystery, we can trust Him with the ones that have not been revealed yet. Jesus said He came to give us rest. We can have it when we trust in God's plan, even if we do not understand it. As always, I invite all to go to M.tforChrist.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit, and today we start chapter 9, uh, 19 I should say, on the Spirit teaching. And the first section is entitled Taught of the Spirit. And, um, and so if you want to read about what, uh, being taught of the Spirit means, go to mt4christ.org and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. And as always, we encourage a life of Christian discipleship because we have a lot to learn, and being taught by the Spirit is really what it's all about. Because we can read the Word of God, but without God's illumination, we won't get everything we need out of that mysterious book. God's got to show us the truth, otherwise we'll never come to Christ. And, you know, and that's a progressive revelation. The more we read of the Word, the more he'll reveal to us. Not only will we learn the lessons well, but, you know, we'll have those eureka moments when the Holy Spirit really puts it alive and makes those words alive and meaningful for us.

Like, oh wow, drunken—

like, for me, you know, oh wow, drunkenness isn't a good thing according to the word of God, and I should repent. So thus I went into recovery. Sexual immorality isn't a good thing. Oh wow, so yeah, I guess that's why we should pursue purity.

And, you know, flee sexual immorality.

Yeah, a couple of examples, and, you know, those are some tough examples, you know, if that's your lifestyle, which it was for me, and more or less defined who you were as a person, or so you thought.

But God defines who we are as people, and if we agree with him, we'll understand that we don't need to be drunk, and we don't need to please ourselves sexually outside of marriage or in sinful ways, you know, to have pleasure. We can find our peace and joy in the Lord and, you know, do things according to His ways. He'll meet all our needs, and He provides us with everything we need for life and godliness according to His Word.

So, we need to know what His Word says in order to make that happen.

And there's remedies for things like anger and depression and fear. It all comes through renewing of the mind and the changing of our lives to follow the Lord's path. And, you know, the answers are found in the Bible and Christian counseling books and all kinds of books about life application. How do we apply the Word? But we have to believe it, then we can receive it, but we also have to live it. So, we've done that, and we're continuing to do that.

The journey doesn't stop.

We're in God's kingdom for eternity, and we're just working it out step by step, and eternity is a long way. So, we do our best here on earth and trust that God's going to lead us all the way.

Anyway, we encourage you, if you don't know what your freedom in Christ even means or who you are in Christ, we invite you to check out our teachings on Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ that are on our YouTube channel. We taught those lessons back in 2021, but preserved them on podcast and took the audio and made videos out of them. So, if you want to listen to hear what we had to say, Those teachings are based on the Word of God and the work of Dr.

Neil Anderson, and they were transformative in my life.

So we offer them to you. We also offer the Word of God, reading the Bible and doing it daily.

Spiritual, you know, if we're going to live this thing, we want to live it 24/7. And reading the Bible and praying and connecting to the Lord through practices like gratitude and silence, are ways we can draw close to the Lord every day, and we recommend that. And as for Bible study, we offer one on our podcast and YouTube channel called Bible Study with the Sinckatis, and we invite you to join us for that as well.

Well, it is Thursday, and it's my vacation— vacation week comes to a close tomorrow, and really a close on Monday morning.

I'm going to enjoy the time off. I've I've already wasted— well, I spent more time in study this morning than I normally do, so thus this is coming out much later than it does. So I'm gonna— I'll probably continue in that vein today, trying to be productive in terms of building myself up in my spirit or getting things done for school, um, or, or just relaxing. Um, and we'll let the Lord guide us today. And we'll, we'll do that by praying.

Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom.

Lord, we thank you so much for all that you do for us. We thank you for the peace that we've received and how you've calmed our, our anger and, uh, how we really made us a different person in terms of how we live. And, uh, it's all according to your will and your ways. And we thank you so much for showing us these truths and helping us to understand the benefit that comes from, from living with you and following your wisdom.

Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening today or watching the— this video. We pray for you to be with them and go with them and to bless them, come alongside them in their prayer request and guide them in their walk of faith. And, uh, Lord, we pray for that for ourselves too. Open our eyes to the things you want us to see and lead us into the things you would have us do.

Because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, Lord, because you showed us how good you are and, um, that we're now part of your family. And so we ask for you to help us, Lord.

We thank you, we praise you, and we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.