“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” Ephesians 4:31

Anger, in this the year 2008 it is a formidable staple in people’s lives all across the globe, from Bangkok to L.A. It doesn’t matter where or who you are anger is not barred from you. And it shouldn’t be, God allowed us this emotion because it is part of what creates great passion in men and women. Passion and anger can be so strong that people can often confuse the two, though they are not interchangeable, What do i mean by that? Well its simple really, think about it for a moment, the time you get angry, is it because of selfish ambition? Now before you say I’ve gone off my rocker, just pause for a moment and ask yourself, in today’s world most of the times when people get angry there is way out of the situation, a door of escape if you will. And before you jump on my back with a nay-say stick remember all those times you got steaming mad, and it boils into anger, there is a process there, from the object of our anger to the boiling point thereof. This is how i think selfish ambition may get in the way, simply because overt anger is an act of the flesh, and if we year for the things of the flesh in this case it is Overt/Brazen Anger then we in an attempt increase our selves and reduce God within us, and in turn we display a small piece of selfish ambition. when it should be the absolute opposite. Now let’s be blear, notice the terms Overt and Brazen before the word anger, this is there because the bible says we should “be angry and sin not” Ephesians 4:26 Some of s are probably thinking “What?! How”

This leads us to todays second Word of study, it comes from Philippians 2:3 “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind…”

You see, sometimes you have to speak to that which is ailing you, that which has you held you captive over the years, decades’ or maybe it has held you for a lifetime. But i say to enough is enough, and its time for a change. Remember, this battle is not yours it is the Lord’s, for we are not strong enough to go it alone, when we believe that we can get through it, the enemy knows now that its time to bring the lumber because that man/woman stands alone. The only way to be free is to fall into the arms of the Lord, allow him to wash clean these crimson stains of anger. You need the help, don’t say to yourself, “i don’t get that angry” I thought so too! It started as just an internal boiling, then it began to manifest itself in tiny little snickering comments, then it grew to outright meanness, then to little outbursts and finally to the point where everything and everyone could do something to make me angry at any give moment. I am convinced that overt and inherent anger is more than flesh and blood that we struggle with.

Now when you make the decision to give it to the Lord, this is not some sort of microwavable process, because it has to be a learned response. Most people think that everything the Lord does will be this instantaneous miracle, but rather sometimes the Lord has to teach us something. We’ve all heard the old saying “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man how to fish, he eats for a lifetime” How then will we ever learn is God always zapped us a miracle, because sinfull man we are, we would simply run to him each time for another quick fix. God is not a crack dealer. Rather God is more interested in us having a more fulfilling and abundant life, so this being the case God is set on teaching us, in order that we can live abundantly for a lifetime! Be coachable and attain victory!

Today, we want to encourage you to keep the fire burning! No, we’re not here to give you a false sense of hope or a false sense of regality. Instead I’m here to say to you don’t let the fire inside you be extinguished with the worlds outside perspectives. Many of us would be lulled to sleep thinking that once we accept Christ the fire just stays a-blaze without proper maintenance, well contrary to popular “religious” belief I am here to tell you that it is not so! Modern day religion would have us believe that if we wake up every day and just go about our business the spiritual fire inside will keep itelf burning strong. This school of though can be attributed to the fact that in today’s world everyone is so use to this microwave philosophy which suggest that we can “set it and forget it”, we’ve become all about a quick fix, and funny enough when that “fix” breaks down, we expect it to fix it self autonomously. Take for example a physical parody to this; modern furnaces have completely slashed the work out of keeping warm in extremely cold climates, we can simply press a button and make ourselves warmer and actually set the temperature at which we desire this warmth to top off. Once we do this there is never a need to check and see if the fire is still burning, it will just turn itself off when it reaches the temperature you desired.

Now let’s roll the timeline back to days past when people would have to make sure there was enough wood around to keep the fire burning, some one had to the fire and monitor the fuel supplies. As an otherwise miscalculation in the amount of wood, would be certain death.

The same is true with our “SPIRITUAL FIRE “. If we think that we can simply ignore it and continue about our daily lives and it will somehow keep itself burning then we have made a mistake that would in effect cost us that which we have fought so hard to attain; which is the relationship and fellowship with the Lord.

Alarmed? You should be, because if you didn’t know accepting; Christ is the easy part, after this now comes the trials and the tests which will mold you into the rugged soldier of life that you need to be. Romans 12:11 tells us that we are to be “fervent in spirit”, which when analytically surmised basically means to keep the fire burning.

How do we do that? I’m glad you asked!

1: pray each day don’t let it slip even when you are so physically tired that you just want to lay down and shut down. Remember the “effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man, availeth much”.

2: Guard against the influxes of the enemy. Remember none is going to come into your house in a red suit and decorated with horns and a pitch fork. These challenges are presented to you in the form of a friend saying “lets go get hammered tonight” or someone you meet on the way home from work gives you a hard time. And the Achilles heel of every American !ROAD RAGE! These are just some of the things we should guard our hearts from.

3: Look out for those so called ”well wishers” who would in your face be perceived as wanting the best for you and in the meanwhile they are speaking negative things into your spirit and about you behind your back. So be carful the things that you see and hear, because you cannot undo them and you are responsible for them. What you do with the information good or bad is how we measure our strength in our walk with the lord.

So we encourage you today to check up one your spiritual fire, remember it is not on auto-pilot and there are shortcuts around this. The best way to make sure you have a real grip on this life is to make sure that we tend to the important aspects that govern our reality. Keeping a close watch on the items we listed above (numbers 1-3) and take care of this life that you are given. Remember, this is it, you’ve got one physical life to live and what we do with it echoes into eternity, where will you spend yours?