Why Are You Angry? An All Encompassing Practice to Make Things Right – Purity 733

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 an ethereal cirrus cloud formation in a blue sky above a stand of trees in a field of green comes to us from yours truly as I decided to capture this stunning scene while I decided to do what was right and take our canine border Harley for a walk on Friday afternoon along Waite Road near my countryside home. After a week of work, I looked forward to resting, but I knew that even though I could just put the dog out in the backyard on his run, a good dog owner and steward to what was entrusted to him would go beyond the minimum qualifications of service and give the dog an opportunity to stretch his legs. Although he was very enthusiastic when we initially set out, Harley's panting confirmed, uh, that the confirmed the fact that the afternoon was a hot one, and I think he was as glad as I was when the walk was over and we returned to the house to rest. Lately, I have been convicted by the vision— the wisdom of doing what is right in any and all areas of my life as an instruction for my walk of faith. What would Jesus do is a question that has been seriously considered by me, and the answer, of course, is that he would do what is right. And he would do what is right in all the areas of his life. I came to this realization because I'm constantly examining my life and I try to make things better. I am continually seeking wisdom from God's word and other Christians who have shared, shared what they have learned from their studies of the scriptures and how they have applied them to their lives. This latest eureka moment to do what is right, duh, uh, comes in part through Through the struggles I've had trying to forsake my occasional binges of candy and ice cream, and through the study of Jay Adams' Confident to Counsel, I realized that when I indulged in occasional, in the occasional cheat day from my diet, I was cheating myself. Not only did my increased carb, caloric, and sugar intake disrupt the harmony that I had established in my body, It also nega— negatively impacted my emotions, as I would feel bad about having compromised my health goals. So, why not avoid feeling bad by doing what is right? Uh, the indulgence isn't worth the negative effects, so why not give up the indulgence and keep the peace and harmony that comes from knowing that I am taking care of myself by choosing to do the right thing. I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm beginning to let this simple wisdom permeate into my thick skull and, and, uh, be expressed in how I live. And I feel that I may have turned a corner and begun the work of dismantling a pattern of thought and behavior that wasn't good for me. Reading Adam's competent counsel has really helped, helped to remind me of the value of our obedience and the impact of our actions. While my experiences in overcoming my personal struggles through discipleship practices and my training in Dr. Neil Anderson's Discipleship Counseling Techniques has put the emphasis on knowing who we are in Christ, living according to it, and allowing our thoughts to transform our emotional lives, Adams' work, uh, covers similar ground but puts forth the truth that actions also impact our emotional lives. Drawing from the wisdom of God's advice in Genesis 4:6-7, where the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it." Adams points out that God is saying, "If you do well," in that God in saying, "If you do well," God is telling Cain to do what is right instead of what is wrong. That sin that is lying at the door to trip you up. If you do what is right, you won't be angry. Your countenance will not be fallen. You won't be depressed. Our concept of sin sometimes can sometimes be legalistic. We can think of sin as breaking laws. But sin is actually missing the mark. Not hitting that bullseye of what God would have us do. And why does God want us to do things in a certain way? Because he loves us. He made us and he has perfect knowledge. He knows what is best for us, so we should heed his advice and obey what he says. When we obey God's law, which in Hebrew is— can also be defined as God's instruction, we benefit from his wisdom. And this principle of doing what is right transcends, transcends all things. Beyond the Ten Commandments, the idea of doing what is right touches every area of our lives. Basic principles like cleaning up after yourself, putting things in their place, keeping things neat and in order, or being a good steward to the things entrusted to us are all things we can do as an expression of our love for God. We appreciate what he has given us in our lives, so we are going to thank him by taking care of them and ourselves by doing what is right. Of course, uh, the spirit in which we approach this all-encompassing practice is very important. If we attempt this practice by viewing it as an obligation, we will be just as angry as Cain because our hearts and mind won't be in it. But if we decide to start doing what is right as an act of faith, as an expression of our love for God and thankfulness for what he has given us, we can not only see the wisdom behind what would, what, what would Jesus do, but we can experience the peace that comes from not having a conflict in our consciences that comes from knowing what we should do and not doing it. Also, our decision to do what is right is— will solve problems and change the atmosphere around us. When we clean up the messes in our lives, we see that our actions matter and that our efforts have rewards. Our continual commitment to live skillfully as an expression of our faith and as a part of our relationship with God results in growth and produces our patience grows, our self-control grows, and prayerfully, if we see that— see the love that lies behind the wisdom that God tried to impart us in one of the earliest portions of the Bible, our love for God will grow. When this practice of doing what you gotta do moment to moment is performed as an expression of our love and gratitude to God, we can realize we really are walking in the Spirit. We have gone to the next level from just knowing what we believe and why we believe it to knowing the Lord and trusting that doing what he would have us do is not only right, but it is for our good and for the good of everyone we will come in contact with, as the peace we have and the love we know has the potential to pour pour into the lives of others as well. So do what you gotta do and keep walking and talking with God and feel good about it. You're doing what is right will be blessed by your Heavenly Father. When you do well, you won't feel angry, you won't be depressed, because you will know that you are doing what you were designed to do and that you have discovered the simple but yet profound meaning and purpose for your life. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is 1 Peter 2:12, and it says, be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. Today's Bible verse encourages us to live properly among our unbelieving neighbors as an expression of our faith. So, if we needed another scripture verse on doing what is right, you can add 1 Peter 2:12 to the list. These verses in scripture remind us that our faith was never supposed to be just a mental cataloging of things we believe that is only demonstrated once a week by sitting through a worship service. Our faith is supposed to impact the way we live our lives, and in turn to impact the lives of those around us. As today's verse points out, we are to live properly even among our unbelieving neighbors as an act of bearing witness to the fact that God has changed our lives. Not only will our living properly keep us from— safe from any accusations of wrongdoing, our living according to God's wisdom and ways gives glory to him. As our unbelieving neighbors will have no choice but to admit that our walk as Christians matches our talk. This verse concludes with a reminder that God will judge the world, and so it motivates us to live for God. It matters how we live, as not only will our obedience to God's way be rewarded by our Heavenly Father, But our faithfulness to live according to Christian principles could be used by God to bring people to consider the Christian faith and in turn make Jesus their Lord and Savior. Our actions matter. Our efforts to live properly can not only give us the peace that comes from living a righteous life, but they also are a witness to the non-believer. Of the truth of our faith. They also give glory to God and can be used to expand his kingdom. So be careful to live properly as a way to express your love and gratefulness to God and to bring honor to him. As always, I invite all to go to M.t. Clark.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life, and today's sections include a heading, When a Bobby Pin Mattered, sort of dating himself, and Yes, Yes, to Talk of War is Lopsided, and the Ruinous Ethic of Mere Avoidance, and the Wrong Questions and the Right Ones. So if you want to know when a bobby pin mattered or what the wrong questions and the right ones are Go to mtforchrist.org and see what John Piper has to say about that in his book Don't Waste Your Life. We don't want to waste our lives. And, you know, and what's a waste of a life? Well, a waste of a life is when we live this life and then we enter into judgment and we are— our lives are, you know, consigned to a place of judgment, separation from God. God in hell. So you don't want to waste your life. The only way we can save our life is through faith in Jesus Christ. So we do that, and we encourage others to do it because we love them. We don't hate them. And, you know, we want people, as many people, to come to faith in Jesus Christ because it literally saves their life. So we do that, and we encourage people to really experience the peace of their salvation and the joy of their life by living according to God's instruction. You know, his instructions for life will give us a good life. He knows who we are because he made us, and he knows what works. And he tried to tell us in Scripture how to do that by obeying his word. Do what I— you know, it's not just do what I say, it's I I love you. This is what I am commanding you to do because I know what's right and I know what's good for you. And I know the error, you know, what happens when you don't do that. And, you know, we can learn that from our experience. We can learn it from scripture. And when we put the two together, we should, you know, come with the determination to follow the Lord. And all that we do, and to, you know, to take care of the things that are before us, um, just to, to, you know, establish peace in our lives, um, you know, by picking up after ourselves and things like that, we can establish an environment around us that's peaceful and, uh, you know, that's in order, and we can have a purpose, uh, to, to keep, keep it maintained and to, uh, and to you know, enjoy the peace continually, to make things better in our lives, to solve problems. So that's what we do here at M.t. Clark. We encourage a life of faith, that everything we do is an expression of our faith. The way we live, the way we— the reasons we get up in the morning to study the word and pray is because we know there's a God who loves us and wants to connect with us. And so we do that, and we try to live a righteous life by doing what is right, not only to avoid, you know, accusations and trouble, but to, uh, to have a life of peace and to, to point people to Christ, that we found the way that lives, that leads to peace, and it's through faith in Jesus. So we do that on the, uh, the, the blog and the podcast by directing people to our teachings that we've shared on from 2021. We shared Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. They're on the podcast as well as our YouTube channel for your viewing and for your learning. You know, we, we don't— you know, recently one of the guys I, I talked to said, you know, we don't, uh, you know, I never knew this stuff. I never knew that our faith could change the way I feel about myself and the way I live my life. You know, he thought it was just for, you know, hats off to God once a week, I guess, and that the way the world was different from the way of God, and that, you know, you left God on the sidelines and did what you had to do. But, you know, he's come to discover that when you, you know, this defines who we are and defines what we're supposed to do. And that when we follow it, we find the peace and that our lives, lives become orderly and peaceful. So what's wrong with peace? I think everybody wants it and not many people find it because not many people find Jesus Christ. So we encourage people to check out our teachings. We also encourage the study of God's Word. That's why we share Bible study, uh, once a week that we do with Arthur and Susanna Sincotti. I'm happy to announce that last night I had some extra time, so I've scheduled the uploading of all our video Zoom sessions for our Bible study, uh, that we've done, and that they will be released once a week. And from now until the end of July, there will be a new Bible study, um, well, a previous Bible study, but a new video, uh, Bible study, um, that'll be released, uh, Wednesday, uh, each week, uh, sort of a midweek service if you wanted to connect with a new Bible study or just to revisit the ones that we've already released. Because really, this, this is just a Zoom video that we're sharing of, of the Bible, uh, the Bible studies that are already on the audio podcast. So it's not new content, but, uh, the video is new, uh, or at least it's being being released for the first time in the weeks ahead. And I was discussing with my wife last night that we'll probably— beyond that, we'll be looking to make some new content as things progress or not. We'll see how it goes. We sort of take it as it goes. But our intentions here at the blog and the podcast is to share with people what we've come to know and how it can help your lives. In fact, today's message was, you know, it went one way and it was supposed to go another. I had intended just to share a bunch of, you know, who I listen to and what I've done, but I don't want to influence anybody too much in terms of listening to certain pastors or whatever. And so the Lord redirected my path as I started to write. What was going to be like a laundry list of pastors and things to listen to turned into this. So I hope it was good. And that's it. How do I, you know, how do I apply this thing to my life day to day? How do you be a Christian 24/7? Well, you live skillfully in the world by following the Lord's will and ways for your life. So I hope that all helps. And one thing we do is we always pray. So let's do that. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you for all that you've done for us, Lord, uh, as we reflected recently that of all the changes you've done in the last, uh, few years, uh, of where you brought us to. And, uh, we thank you and we'll never forget it, Lord. And we'll, we'll always speak of the goodness of you and, uh, all that comes through a faith, uh, life that starts with a simple decision to put your faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. So, Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for the people listening today, Lord. We pray for you to bless them because anyone listening to this podcast has a heart for God, to follow, or, uh, you know, to, to be authentic in their faith. And Lord, we, we pray for you to bless them, bless them with healing, bless them with financial blessings, or, or just the fact of your presence in their life, uh, as they get on the, uh, as they continue to walk on the path of Christian discipleship, to, to know you more and to make you known wherever they go in the world. So, Lord, we thank you for all these things. Lord, we pray for you to go before us today, open our eyes to what we need to see, and direct us into the things we should do. And, and make it a good day, Lord. And, and if things go sideways, remind us to think of you, because there's peace in your presence. And we can— we know you're available to us 24 24/7, and we can always call on your name, uh, to find the peace that we need. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.