Tag: Holy Spirit

Dealing with Arguers

“Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy”

Hebrews 12:14, TNIV

 

For me personally, someone in my face can be nasty and irritating.  It seems I can never say enough.  I simply don’t get any sense of having “convinced” them of my position or views.  I maintain composure (I try, anyway) and then ignite when its all over.

Inevitably, I start playing the whole ugly argument over and over.  Often, if I feel quite vulnerable, I will enlist my dear wife’s availability.  She comes to my side, where I find the support I wanted.

Intense arguments can derail me from so much.  Going to scripture in this frame of mind does me no good at all.  When I’m in this place, prayer becomes unplugged (kind of like my exercise “treadmill.”)  I sit in my chair and simmer, and occasionally boil over.

What do I need most?

  • Humility
  • Gentleness, and sensitivity
  • Kindness  
  • Pre-planning, or pre-alignment of my heart
  • A sense of humor
  • Renunciation of my “rights” and privileges

 

A lot of things could be added to my quick list, that would be helpful.  Making cookies, or doing new chores also sort out things.  If the issue is more mountain than molehill, find your way to an elder or a pastor.  But whatever you do, it’s best to keep moving.  So much is working to solidify you in one place.  It’s like walking through wet cement! (It’s best not to linger too long, in one place.)

Know this though.  Being in an argument or conflict is not sin.  They may disturb us, but we don’t necessarily have to sin.  Jesus had some whoppers in His day.  He walked into these conflagrations without a diminishing of peace or joy.  He walked out of them the same way.  He can teach us, by showing us how He did it.

Just one more thing (I’m trying hard to write a essay here.)  You don’t hear or read it very often–but, we all are models and examples to someone else.  Our children, neighbors, friends, the bank teller and our gym instructor.  Not that everyone knows of our issue, our frustration.  But that our lives are filled with a “joyous humility.”  I think what hurts me most is that I fear my witness or testimony has been damaged by my words and actions.

God is God of my everything.  He knows what happened.  He knows me, and knows them.  The sin does not impede His vision of you.  When he was on earth, he was never disturbed by any confict.  Today, he is the same.  Disputing with someone else– no problem.  He doesn’t get loose and cut you down in embarassment.  Brilliantly and lovingly, He absorbs all that concerns you.  He is more gentle than you know and kinder than any man, or woman. 

Psalms 16, Study–“Something Good”

Psalm 16

7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
   even at night my heart instructs me.
8 I keep my eyes always on the LORD.
   With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
   my body also will rest secure,
10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
   nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
11 You make known to me the path of life;
   you will fill me with joy in your presence,
   with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

 

This is perhaps one of the most beautiful parts of scripture.  There are so many truths enmeshed in this text.  It’s like a chocolate chip cookie, with truth spread through each bite. (Silly analogy, I know.)  But when we examine it and bring ourselves to obey it, His riches flow directly into us.

There must be an understanding, and verses 7-8 brings Him very close to us.  We connect in a special way.  The Psalmist describes us having a direct awareness of His close presence.  But he also describes his general attitude toward the Presence of God.  He wants to be aware–24 hours a day, continuously.

Verses 9-10 are describing a victory over death.  The Psalmist has come to a definite point, he can no longer see death the way everyone else does.  He understands it to be a very silly charade, and somehow he sees through it.  Because of the Lord’s intervention, he comes to this delicious point.  The ugly obscenity of death, is completely undone.

This confidence of the Psalmist is further extended.  He thinks and feels like he  is bulletproof.  Nothing touches or degrades his faith.  He walks out into life and into the confusion.  But you must understand this.  His faith in God has made him “teflon.”  And indeed he does process a deep understanding of the source of love and joy, he knows it.  As he taps into this, he will now have the real possibility of overcoming the darkness, that could very easily absorb him.

The deep truths of this particular Psalm has the incredible potential to transform us into supernatural people.  As we focus on Psalm 16, and endeavour to make it our own, it will change us and it has the power to revolutionize us in a most profound way.  I say, let it come.

Psalm 16, Study– “He is Always Good”

 Psalm 16

1 Protect me, God,
       because I trust in you.
 2 I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord.
       Every good thing I have comes from you.”
 3 As for the godly people in the world,
       they are the wonderful ones I enjoy.
 4 But those who turn to idols
       will have much pain.
    I will not offer blood to those idols
       or even speak their names.

 5 No, the Lord is all I need.
       He takes care of me.
 6 My share in life has been pleasant;
       my part has been beautiful.

Psalm 16:1-6,  New Century Version

This Psalm is profoundly deep, and the themes it discusses are definitely significant.  The Psalmist has a steady and direct confidence in all that swirls around him.  He knows that God is available and perched to protect him.  To a certain extent he thinks that as he gives himself over to Him, he will be protected and watched over.  He sees that God’s innate goodness is available to the needs his soul has.

We operate and function completely surrounded.  There is no way we can diminish God’s goodness.  It’s the way He functions–He will never be bad, but only and completely good.  The Psalmist goes on to proclaim the wonderfulness of God’s people.  They are outstanding, they are terrific.  He loves those who belong to Him.  The Psalmist understand these two incredible concepts:  God’s goodness and God’s people.  These two resources will help him deal with the future.

The Psalmist abhors the falseness of idolatry.  When you have truly experienced the reality of God, just being with  idols will truly bring you to despair and futility.  In the piercing light, we cannot imagine a substitute.  He knows that God rules and directs.  The Psalmist will not budge or falter.  God sits on the throne, exclusively, and He doesn’t share it with an idol.  Nothing can change that, especially no false maneuvering or manipulation here on earth.  He will still be God.  The Psalmist speaks,

“No, the Lord is all I need.
       He takes care of me.
 6 My share in life has been pleasant;
       my part has been beautiful.”

He has a “razor’s edge” understanding of all that has been given him.  God Himself is his source.  God is the well he draws water out of.  God is the complete source of all his needs.  Can you say that?  Will God, your Father provide for a struggling “you?”

As we analyze this Psalm, we are brought into this sense that the believer has been led into a confidence, and an assurance of God’s exceptional goodness.  The writer clearly speaks of “pleasantness” and “being beautiful.”  Without a doubt, these key words will adjust, and assist us to savor His grace.  He has made things to be pleasant and beautiful.  We must take this confidence, and weave it into our lives.

^

ybic, Bryan

The Sin That Sticks

                     

“If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away,
         And do not let wickedness dwell in your tents.”  NASB

“And give up your sins– even those you do in secret.” CEV

Job 11:14  [in two versions]

 ***

“When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people’s hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong.”

Eccl. 8:11, NIV

 

We know it, deep inside of us.  Our sin and iniquity, those things that stick to us, must be renounced and stripped away.  I think it’s interesting that Job is working from the assumption that each of us has sin issues.  I don’t think scripture is ever really shocked by the depth of our iniquity.  We are sinners, and we will sin, but the Holy Spirit is never surprised or caught off guard by our sin and deceit.  But we are, most certainly guilty.

This verse in Job emphasizes “renunciation”.  That means relinquishing or repudiating the evil that we love doing.  I think that in Job’s thinking it means abandoning our sinfulness.  We are to let it go, releasing it to the grace of God.  We are not to sin in secret.

We privatize our favorite sins to make ourselves acceptable.  I think that this is a truism:  “We care more for what people think of us, then what God thinks of us.”  Our sin thrives in solitude, its like a warm and humid greenhouse for our evil.  Secretiveness just causes it to grow, our hiddenness is “Miracle Grow” for our darkness and ugliness.

Job is very much concerned I think, by the contagiousness that sin has.  We transmit the sin virus to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  If we have a hidden darkness, we will most certainly sicken those we touch.  Our Churches have been decimated by private and hidden sin.  I’m thing of Achan in Joshua 7.  He secretly desired nice things, and it destroyed him and his family.

What judgement will you bring on to your loved ones, and your church?  What are you hiding?  Often, I have heard questions like that, and it temporarily moves me.  But it seems the change is not permanent (I desperately wish it was.)  But I suggest that you go into your “tent” and bring your deceitfulness out into the full light of day.  And then, put it to a merciless death.