Psalm 69:24 Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.

There are really evil things happening in this world. I confess that some of those things have made me so angry that I wanted to pour out my indignation upon them, and let my wrathful anger take hold of them. I wanted to be the vehicle of vengeance.

Simply put, I wanted to play god. Vengeance is mine I will repay. I had already played judge and jury, let me be the executioner also! That is what anger does for you. Anger isn’t satisfied by running off at the mouth. Anger has to put its hands on someone and throttle them. Anger isn’t easily abated. I know this to be true by experience.

Let me tell you what else I learned from that moment and it is more important than the sin I tried avenging. I lost my mind. I was no longer me, I became something without control or will to choose. I was unable to loosen my grip and nothing existed but the act itself.

I was no longer me. I forgot who I was. Now years later I know who I am in Christ Jesus. I am a new creation in Christ and a minister of reconciliation. Forgetting who I am now means something loving, gracious and kind stops being loving, gracious and kind. I am called to be a light unto the world. Anger turns off the light. That is the enemy having his way with me, being used of Satan rather than used of God.

1 Thessalonians 5:15 See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.

Ephesians 4:26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

We will get angry, the idea is to not allow it to consume us.

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

To the best of my recollection the first commandment was “Don’t eat.” OK, maybe I went back to far. Perhaps Jesus was talking about the Ten Commandments. No, wait, the first commandment was “I am the LORD thy God yea shall have no gods before me.” Am I confused here or is Jesus wrong?

We didn’t understand “don’t” if we had we would have obeyed. We didn’t understand worshipping false gods or we wouldn’t have done it. So Jesus clarifies what it takes to understand what the Father meant. Jesus is putting clarity to that thing we have demonstrated as not being able to understand. Now we can understand what He meant and obey.

Have we obeyed Jesus with “all”? Are we even capable of obeying mostly much less giving “all”? Well here is the Good News, it was never said again on this side of the Cross. On this side of the Cross we have an advocate that takes our prayers and our less than all obedience of faith and He cleans up the language.

“Father I know what it looks like, but You sent Me down to be human so that We could understand what it feels like to be one of them. I’m telling you it isn’t what it looks like. This is what it means.”

It all boils down to Jesus gave His “all” because He knew we could not. He went from explaining God the Father to us, to explaining us to God the Father.

Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Thank God for Jesus Christ who understands.