JMD Devotional 255 Ephesians 4:26,27 Loosing Containment

When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down. Leave no [such] room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him].

Proverbs 29:22,23 (NIV) An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins. A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.

Proverbs 21:19 (NIV) Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.

Proverbs 22:24,25 (KJV) Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.

When radio broadcast was first invented, the art of radio reception had a lot of catching up to do. Amplifiers did not have much gain. An early and short-lived remedy was the super regenerative receiver, which fed a portion of the output of the amplifier back to its input for another pass of amplification. Anyone who has held a microphone too close to a speaker knows the result of too much feedback; it howls like a son of a gun! The chief problem was that amplifying the same signal over and over again also amplified the noise and distortion. Anger works in much the same way in our minds. We fixate on an offense, and keep bringing it up from our stomach again and again to chew on it some more. Our magnification of a wrong becomes totally out of proportion to all of what is right around us. Unbridled, anger chases every loved one away from us; destroying our relationships. It is fueled by our selfish pride and shame.

Proverbs 17:9 (NIV) He who covers over an offence promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

Proverbs 19:11 (NIV) A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offence.

Dear God,
I am ashamed of how wrong I have been while trying so hard to assert I was ‘right’. I have trampled fragile flowers to make a ‘point’; I have bruised tender souls. Forgive me for being so thick and unyielding. Help me to choose my battles; and to choose not to fight when overlooking an offense is best for everyone. Help me to sheath my sword 99% of the time; and to only use it when You call for it. May I not care whether outsiders think I am weak or not; may there be acceptance, warmth and safety in the hearth of my relationships. I profess that godly reserve is more powerful than man’s anger displayed.
Amen

All (but*) quotes are from The Amplified Bible, published by
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*New International Version (NIV)
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**Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. (Eugene Peterson's easy-to-read, contemporary Scripture translation)

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