No Lost Temper

Friday July 18, 2025

Good morning, Lord

Father in Heaven, I seek You first-the knowledge of Your kingdom and Your righteousness. Fill my consciousness constantly and complete Your joy in me as I take up my cross and follow...In Jesus' name…

Memory verse:Jeremiah 15:19 ESV

Therefore thus says the Lord: “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth. They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them.” 

Verse of the day: Psalm 119:7

7 “I will praise you with an upright heart,    when I learn your righteous rules.”

Readings: Psalm 20-22 Acts 21:1-17

No Lost Temper

“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11–12).

Jesus does not say, “Don’t lose your temper” when people insult because of Him, He says “...rejoice and leap for joy…”(Luke 6:23)

This command of Jesus tells us to rejoice in the place of anger which is the emotion that He knows will rise up in us.

This may be one of His hardest commands for all of us. What Jesus is teaching us is that we can not only keep our anger in check but if we listen to Him and obey Him-if we truly treasure His words and teachings-His Holy Spirit shows us how to ‘rejoice and be glad’ in the face of things that are certain to push our reactions to the limit.

The Holy Spirit is our peace and joy. Oh, I get it...people do some of the most anger provoking things just because they can. They try to push our buttons because that is their wicked little way of living.

This is the point of our Lord Jesus. He knows what folks can say and what they are going to say. He wants us to learn to live in the Spirit so that when the attacks come, we will be under the Spirit’s control so we can, in our minds, back up and laugh.

I have been over 6’2’’ since I was 14. There has always been some short guy with a big man chip on his shoulder who wanted to prove himself on a big man. I have not been in a fight since high school and I’ve been in a lot of places where it could have come to that. But I had to learn how to shut my mouth and back off and laugh on the inside and walk away and that was mostly all in the flesh.

If I can do that in the flesh, how much more should I be able to do in the spirit.

No matter your size, we all have a ‘short man’-the things that want to drive us to angry outbursts and make us look foolish.

That is the job of the enemy-to make us look foolish. The job of the Holy Spirit of Truth is to make us look like sensible servants of the most High God.

If we love God, we must be concerned about how we make God look-love does that-we want to display God’s grace in us for His glory.

If we display angry reactions, we are a weak witness to God’s greatness. If we display control, the world can see the results of the change God has made in us.

Again, Jesus knows how hard it is because He has been there and continues daily to hear what the enemy says about him through his people. This is to say, He knows what you hear and knows your heart and provides all you need to be in control.

This takes practice, study, prayer-over and over-trial and failure-and still Jesus says, “Rejoice and be glad-for great is your reward in Heaven”.

Tell God how you struggle with anger and tell Him you want to do it His way.

...because He loves us...He will do it...

Father in Heaven,

Your name is the highest name, Your kingdom is my desire. Your will is hard for me but give me today what I need to stay in the Spirit. Forgive me for losing it doing things wrong. Lead me away from chaos in my mind.

Father of peace and gentleness,

In the name of Christ Jesus,

Amen