Walking in the Word with Breast Cancer

31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. - Ephesians 4:31-32 I just realized I spent the majority of the week in verse 31, focusing on the things we should be putting away, and I’ve only left the last day to focus on what we should be doing...but that’s consistent with my personality. I see a list of don’ts long before I see a list of do’s.  My tendency is often to focus on what’s wrong rather than focus on what’s right. I’m working on it, but clearly I still have a long way to go.  Kindness is a tender heart and a nurturing spirit, it is a gentle attitude toward others filled with grace and mercy. When we are kind, we go out of our way to put another’s needs before our own. We have no consideration for our sacrifice in our act of kindness - in other words, it’s not kind when we point out our kind act, or...

31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. - Ephesians 4:31-32 Slander is not just speaking falsely about someone, but the intention is malicious and meant to damage someone’s reputation. It is divisive and destructive to our relationships.  Because of the poisonous nature of this sin, it is the enemy’s chief strategy for dividing and conquering people in this world. Words against another destroy our horizontal relationships, causing more strife and distrust than any other action. It’s not always bold and easily identifiable, many times slander wears the subtle mask of a friend seeking help - sometimes it’s just the tone with which we share information, but it’s intention damages the value of the person.  Slander is essentially stealing the value of a person’s name - it’s that devaluing of the heart that makes...

31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. - Ephesians 4:31-32 While bitterness, wrath, and anger all stem from the same emotion of anger, clamor is a bit different. Clamor is an expression of dissatisfaction, but often in a loud or public manor. In other words, it’s complaining for everyone to hear.  We complain to others when we’re discontent, when something isn’t going as expected and we want a different outcome. Grumbling and complaining reveal our true heart -thanklessness. If we’re clamoring about our spouse or our bank account, about our boss or our neighbor, we’re not grateful and we’re certainly not content for where God has placed us. The sovereign God of the universe specifically chose every aspect of your life for you, as a way to grow you and transform you into His image. Complaining about any of it...

31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. - Ephesians 4:31-32 Bitterness, by definition, is a lingering anger at being treated unfairly or unjustly. It’s a building resentment at being wronged. We’ve all been in that place of deep hurt. We have some expectation for how we should be treated by some person in our lives - a co-worker, a neighbor, a family member, a spouse, and when they fail to meet that expectation, we get angry. That anger quickly escalated to bitterness when we hold on to it, especially when the person continues to fail to meet our expectations.  Bitterness goes further than just anger in its definition, it’s considered a harsh emotion, marked by intense animosity or contempt. When we have unresolved anger in our lives, and we stuff it away without dealing with it, it’s like putting fuel on a f...

31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. - Ephesians 4:31-32 God makes no exception here to letting go of our negative feelings - He says Let ALL bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you. ALL means ALL. We have a tendency to try to defend or justify some of our negative feelings because of what the other person has done, but God leaves no room for excuses. It all needs to be put away.  Some will try to argue for righteous anger, as if we have a right to be angry because someone offended or hurt us. Or they will say our anger is justified because the other person was clearly biblically wrong. But digging deeper into scripture reveals this isn’t the case at all. Just a few short verses earlier, we are told: 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27...

8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. - 2 Peter 3:8-9 You have to have hope to be patient and wait on the Lord. Hope is the confident expectation of better things to come. Hope happens when you believe that God is at work, and His plan is for our good. Hope is the faith to believe that God’s ways are better than my ways. If we don’t have faith, we don’t have hope. How do we get confident that better things are to come? How do we find that hope? Experience. If you know someone who has a great deal of faith, they have hope - and they got that hope through experience. It comes from taking little steps of faith and then seeing God act. It also comes from reading the stories of His faithfulness in scripture. When you don’t ha...

31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. - Ephesians 4:31-32  In the business of our days, it’s easy to forget the mercy and grace that has been given to us by God. When we don’t spend time reflecting on the fact that He sent His Son to die for our sins so that we may enjoy His blessing of eternal life over what the wrath that we truly deserve, it doesn’t impact our day. Even when we do spend time reflecting on it, the truth of what He has done can quickly get swept away in our busyness. We get distracted by what is in front of us, and our needs quickly take over our minds.  It is this forgetfulness that causes so much relational strife in our lives. When we fail to recognize that His mercies are new for us everyday, we fail to extend that mercy to others in our lives. When we forget the grace and mercy t...