“I am mad!” I declared. Not out loud. In my heart.
“Get the anger out of your heart,” the Lord spoke to my heart. Immediately.
I was about to make a phone call. Years and years of not purifying my heart. Old habits die hard. Not just old habits. Old sin. Ugly, yucky, sin against God. I was going to get on the phone with an angry heart. And Lord only knew where I undoubtedly would be headed with my mouth.
I knew what I needed to do. Get rid of the anger. Forgive anyone and everyone I needed to forgive. Then pick up the phone and not bring a heart of sin into the conversation. But instead bring a heart filled with the love and light and hope and peace and joy and mercy of Jesus the Christ.
A fundamental necessity in being a Jesus follower is to continually purify our hearts, mouths, and actions so we’re living in love for and obedience to the Lord!
I so wish I could tell you I never get on the phone angry anymore and I’m never mean and never mess up and all sin is behind me, but this is so not true. I am a work very much in progress, and I praise the Lord for His faithful love and amazing mercy with me as He patiently teaches me to walk in His ways.
Got any anger in your heart? Any meanness in your mouth? Anything in your heart, words, and actions that needs to be gotten rid of? Do you continually purify yourself for the Lord? Oh, please do!
“That ye put off concerning the former conversation [also “behavior” per Strong’s concordance]the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:22-32 KJV