Dashboard Confessions: Anger

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. James 1:19-20

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. James 4:1-3

There’s a third “light on the dashboard” that lets me know something’s not right under the hood of my life. Anger is a glaring indicator that I’m not seeking Jesus, His kingdom, and His righteousness because as James reminds us “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20).

Who me? Angry? No, of course not. After all, I’m a pastor…right? I wish I could say that being a man of the cloth precluded me from being a man of wrath, but it’s just not true. I can get down right mad sometimes.

Once I got mad at my wife for asking me to vacuum because she was keeping me from reading my Bible. I’m not kidding. I had been looking forward to spending some time in my favorite chair, reading my Bible and spending some time with God. I had been on my way to that chair and prayer several times that evening but had been prevented for various reasons. Those reasons happen to have the same names as my children. Just as I was about to settle in for some sweet time with Jesus, believing that all my other duties were done, Christine reminded me that I had agreed to vacuum the downstairs. So I huffed and I puffed and I vacuumed the house down. Anger provides amazing energy for house cleaning, doesn’t it? As I pushed that machine back and forth with furious force, I began to think about why I was so angry and the Spirit began to melt me. “This is ridiculous. What goal is she blocking that makes me so mad right now,” I asked internally. “You wanted to read your Bible and spend some time with God,” the Spirit seemed to say with sanctified sarcasm. “Oops. That’s embarrassing,” I chuckled nervously to myself. I wanted to crawl under a rock, but instead I went to Christine and confessed the double foolishness of raging at her for making me do something I said I would do and hindering me from wanting to pursue righteousness. My anger was not producing the righteousness I thought I wanted, but was produced by a self-righteous sense of entitlement. And woe be to anyone who tried to interrupt my pursuit of God with a need to be served. Of all the nerve!

James says that the reason I get mad, fight, and quarrel is because I want something that I’m not getting. Whether my desire is for something shallow like some down time in my favorite chair or a deeper craving for respect, you’d best not get in my way. I’ll even try to use God to get what I really want, asking Him for good things that I can spend on my own pleasure. James follows this discussion with these words: “You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God” (vs. 4)? My anger is a red flag that tells me I’ve traded God for a lesser lover. I get angry when my idols disappoint me. There it is. Anger is the flashing light that tells me that I’ve got idols under the hood.

Only the Spirit can produce the righteousness of God in me. And He’ll do that when I take my anger and its idols to the cross, gaze at the One who bore the righteous wrath of His Father for my idolatry and irritability and with repentant faith believe again the Message that I’ve heard about Him (Galatians 3:1-5).

Culture Matters

Today's "Breakpoint Commentary" by Chuck Colson features my friend T. M. Moore's recently published Culture Matters: A Call for Consensus on Christian Cultural Engagement.

Colson on the back cover of the book: "This is far and away the best and most important of T. M. Moore's many excellent books. As one of the premier Christian thinkers today, Moore presents a magnificent case for Christian cultural engagement. Well worth reading."

Life Verses

Catherine Claire, one of the bloggers at The Point, offers this look at the new One Year Life Verse Devotional, a book that explores the favorite "life verses" of today's Christian leaders. I've written about my life verses in another post on this blog, but I'm wondering what yours might be and how God has used it to shape you over the years. Leave your comments here.

Dashboard Confessions: Appetite

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?" Matthew 6:25

"Oh God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You. My soul thirsts for You, my flesh faints for You...." Psalm 63:1

"For many...walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things." Phillipians 3:18-19

Another light that sometimes flashes on the dashboard of my life is my appetite. They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. The window into his heart may also be found there. We're prone to treasure treats as much as trinkets.

On the day that I went shopping for shoes I had a craving for shakes. I purposefully chose to shop in a particular shopping center because I knew there were four options for securing one of my favorite treats: milkshakes. I could go to these milkshake dealers in the following order of my preferences from first to last: Marble Slab, Baskin-Robbins, Arby's (love that Jamocha shake!), or Steak and Shake. I recognized that day that I had an unusually overwhelming appetite for a chocolatey milkshake. It served as a light on the dashboard to warn me that my soul was not thirsting for God; instead, my flesh was fainting for food.

Jesus' command to not be concerned about what we will eat or what we will wear must have sounded different to His hearers on the hillside than it does to us today. Their concern was whether they would eat or wear anything, our concern is what we will choose to eat or wear. As one of my student ministry interns admitted, "We get stressed because we have so many options." Why do I tend to see Jesus as only one of the many options for my heart's hunger rather than the sole satisfaction of my soul?

At the start of the new year I started Weight Watchers. I know that dieting may be an idol for some folks, but for me (since I rarely do it) it is a spiritual discipline. Limiting the amount and kinds of food I eat is just plain hard work. Cutting back on my food and soft drink intake has revealed to me how unwilling I was to allow myself to feel hungry or thirsty. I had been quieting every pang of hunger with something to munch and drowing my thirst with liquid sugar. It's easy to confuse emptiness of heart with emptiness of stomach. But the Spirit has been gracious to turn my hunger pangs into reminders that, like Jesus, "my food is to do the will of my Father who sent me and to accomplish His work" (John 4:34), to know Him and to make Him known. He wants me to remember that I am made to fill up on Him by faith until I overflow with the righteousness, joy, and peace of His Kingdom (Galatians 5:6, 22-23; Romans 14:17).

When the appetite light begins to blink in my belly, I know it's time to turn away from idols to the Living God again, asking Him to feed my famished heart with Jesus, the Bread of Heaven, and to sate my soul with His Living Water (1 Thessalonians 1:9; John 4:13-14, 6:35). Then, satisfied in Him, I will find strength to live the cruciform life of feeding on God and feeding His sheep.

Dashboard Confessions: Acquisitions

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust detroy and where thieves break in to steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Matthew 6:19-21

The first light on the dashboard of my life that alerts me to trouble under the hood is acquistions. In other words, my desire to acquire tells me something has gone haywire in my heart. When I find myself wanting stuff that I don't really need it tips me off to my heart's dissatisfaction with seeking first the Lord, His Kingdom, and His righteousness.

I remember shopping one day for a new pair of black dress shoes. I had worn out my old pair, even replacing the soles a couple of times. But I was about to preach my grandfather's funeral and thought it might be a good time for a new pair of shoes. While shopping I noticed this powerful urge to buy other stuff. I saw things I thought I needed, things that would not have come to mind if I hadn't seen them on the way to finding shoes! That urge to splurge flashed on the dashboard of my life and warned me that my heart was asking "what shall I wear?" instead of "how shall I seek and savor and serve the King and His kingdom?"

A walk through Wal-Mart will weigh our wants. Here's a test: see if you can leave Wal-Mart (or the mall or other such place) with only one item. It's difficult to go to places like that with a list and only leave with what you came to get!

As a kid I would occasionally pester my parents for the latest Atari video game or some other trinket. When my dad had heard enough, he was known to say with a whiny, mocking voice: "I want, I want, I want. I need, I need. I gotta have. Gi'me, gi'me, gi'me!" Those words too often describe the cry of my heart. And the more I want something, the more I think I need it. The more I "need" it, the more I've "gotta have" it, until my heart is overflowing with "gi'me, gi'me, gi'me." This is a light on the dashboard for me, telling me my heart is crying out for an idol when it was made for a King and Kingdom that are worth more than all that I can or do possess (Matthew 13:44-46).

When I pay attention to this indicator, I have a fresh opportunity to repent of my idolatry and embrace Jesus again as the One who endured the penalty for my materialism. Only the Gospel can cure my greedy grasp of trinkets and secure my grip on Jesus my Treasure.

Has the acquisition light been flashing on your dashboard lately?

Dashboard Confessions

A couple of years ago, on a trip to Landsdowne, VA, two different lights on the rental car dashboard flashed at different times. The first one looked completely foreign to me, and since there was no driver's manual in the glove compartment, I just ignored it and drove on. (I was relieved to find out that it was merely letting me know it needed an oil change!) Ignorance was bliss.

Later on, another light came on and even beeped at me warning that I was low on fuel. Since I knew what this warning light meant, I pulled over at the nearest gas station and filled up. In this case, knowledge was a blessing! But what if I had been ignorant about this light, too, and ignored it? It's important to know what the lights on our dashboards mean. Ignoring the wrong light could mean trouble.

All too often the ligts on the dashboard of my life are vying for my attention while I enjoy the blissful ignorance of my cruise control Christian life. The Spirit is trying to tell me that "something's wrong under the hood" as I'm on my journey to seek the face of God. But unless I prayerfully spend time in God's Word, reflecting on my heart in light of Jesus' glory and grace, I won't know what the warning lights are or what they mean.

Some of the lights on my dashboard include:

• Acquisitions
• Appetite
• Anxiety
• Anger
• Approval
• Acceptance
• Apathy
• Attention

In future posts, we'll consider how each of these warning signals may help us take a look under the hood and lead us to repent and believe the Good News afresh, resulting in greater love for God and love for others. I want a cruciform, not cruise control, life.

[I am grateful to the late Dave Busby for the "lights on the dashboard" metaphor. I believe he used it in his "Heart of the Matter" talks and book.]

Breathe the Gospel

“When [James 1:21 says] ‘receive the implanted word,’ I think there is an implication that the gospel remains the center of the word that we receive every day. It is the gospel—the central message that Christ died for our sins and rose again and gives us eternal joy in God through faith—it’s this gospel that took root in our lives when we were born again. The gospel is implanted in us, and we need to breathe it in every day. You never outgrow your need for the good news of forgiven sin and imputed righteousness and eternal life and God being totally for you—and all of this by grace alone, on the basis of Christ alone, through faith alone, to the glory of God alone. You never graduate to a class where that is not the center of the curriculum. I think this is implied in saying that the word that saved us and is implanted in us is what we should go on receiving every day.

But God’s word, the Scripture, is more than just the gospel. And Paul says all of it is inspired and profitable (2 Timothy 3:17). It is one piece of fabric. The gospel is the supremely glorious design in the center of the fabric. But all of it is woven together as one fabric. So my biblical exhortation is: Every day with meekness receive the word of God. That is, every day be in the Bible. Breathe the Bible. Don’t try to hold your breath from Monday to Wednesday. Breathe every day.’”

John Piper in “Receive With Meekness the Implanted Word” (Sermon given January 6, 2008)

Refreshed Between a Rock and a Hard Place

I often feel caught between a rock and a hard place. In fact, some weeks it seems that I merely step from one rock to another hard place, wondering when the tough times will pass so that I can experience those "times of refreshment from the Lord" (Acts 3:20). But God promises to refresh me in and from those places. Strange. I don't know that I've often expected refreshment in, and especially not from, hard circumstances, difficult relationships, or the agony of waiting.

A couple of days ago I was feeling caught in one of those "rock and hard place" days. I came back to the office after lunch, feeling the anxiety building up inside, and was reminded to pray my midday Psalm. The scheduled Psalm was 114 which highlights the power of God as it was displayed through the wilderness wanderings of His people after the Exodus. Talk about some hard places! The Psalm concludes with these verses: "Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water" (vv. 7-8).

The psalmist is most likely alluding to those moments when God's people found themselves on "thirsty ground where there was no water" (Deuteronomy 8:15). The people complained to Moses, Moses cried out to God, and God provided fresh water from the side of a rock (Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers 20:2-13). As I meditated on these verses the Spirit seemed to be saying, "You don't have to wait until the hard times are past to find refreshment. I can satisfy your thirsty heart from the rock and in the hard place. When I am present in those places (and I Am), you can find refreshment for your soul." I was then reminded that just the week before He had me meditating on Exodus 17:1-7, the time God told Moses to strike the rock and watch the water flow. God told Moses in verse 6, "Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink." The key to the rock providing water was not the pounding of Moses' staff but the presence of the Standing God.

Not even a moment after the Spirit opened my eyes to see that wonderful truth, He turned my heart toward Christ. I envisioned Him on the cross, standing on that nail in His feet, pouring out His life for me. I thought about the soldier's spear that made blood and water flow from the side of the Rock of my Salvation (John 19:34). I was filled with new confidence and comfort that my God was present in the hard places in my life, and that He indeed is the One who "turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water."

The Cruciform Life Requires a "Drastic Conversion"

"The diagnosis of the world's sickness (and, therefore, of the individuals who comprise the world) is that the power to love has been wrongly directed. It has either been turned in upon itself or given to the wrong things. The outward symptoms, and the results, of this misdirection are plainly obvious (at least in other people) in what we call 'sin' or 'selfishness.' The drastic 'conversion' which God-become-Man called for is the reversal of the wrong attitude, the deliberate giving of the whole power to love, first to God, and then to other people."

J. B. Phillips in Your God Is Too Small, page 121.

Cruciform = "A Striking Likeness of Jesus Christ"

“A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ. You have read lives of Christ, beautifully and eloquently written, and you have admired the talent of the persons who could write so well, but the best life of Christ is His living biography, written out in the words and actions of His people. If we, my brethren, were what we profess to be; if the Spirit of the Lord were in the heart of all His children, as we could desire; and if, instead of having abundance of formal professors, we were all possessors of that vital grace, I will tell you not only what we ought to be but what we should be; we should be pictures of Christ, yea, such striking likenesses of Him, that the world would not have to hold us up by the hour together, and say, ‘Well, it seems somewhat of a likeness;’ but they would, when they once beheld us, exclaim, ‘He has been with Jesus; he has been taught of Him, he is like Him; he has caught the very idea of the holy Man of Nazareth, and he expands it out into his very life and every day actions.’”

C. H. Spurgeon in “Christ’s People—Imitators of Him” (Sermon given April 29, 1855)

Created for Good Works

The cruciform life is a life of good works overflowing from a heart that has been transformed by the cross of Christ. These good works flow vertically as works of "loving God" and horizontally as works of "loving others".

My friend T. M. Moore has begun a 5-day series on "good works" at his website. Click on the link below and enjoy!

Redeemed for Good Works
My Paruchia - Monday, 07 January 2008

© My Paruchia

What Is In Thine Hand?

This powerful poem, written by my wife's great-grandfather, hangs framed on a wall in her Grandma Lytle's house. I first read it years ago after we were married and was greatly encouraged by it. I pray that God will use its message to encourage you to "press on" in your personal mission field in 2008.

WHAT IS IN THINE HAND (Exodus 4:2)
by Sloan Duncan Gibson

Shamgar had an oxgoad,
Rahab had a string,
Gideon had a trumpet,
David had a sling,
Sampson had a jawbone,
Moses had a rod,
Dorcas had a needle,
They were all used of God.

The string hung out the window,
The trumpet gave its sound.
The sling went into action,
Goliath come tumble-n-down.
The jawbone won the battle
In Sampson's mighty hand.
The rod divided the waters,
The path was as dry land.

The work of Dorcas' needle,
Will live on in memory.
So deeds of love for others
Will abide eternally.
Be diligent then, believer,
There's a need in every land.
Press on faithfully using
The gift that's in thy hand.