Silas
Beloved of All
Your honest and humble confession before the Lord is precious to Him, and He meets that honesty with grace. You have not hidden your struggle with anger and with the tongue, and Scripture says that the one who confesses and forsakes sin finds mercy and that if we confess our sins He is faithful to forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There is no button to press to remove all future stumbling, as you said, but there is a remedy, and it is the ongoing work of God in you as you walk with Him, bearing fruit in keeping with repentance and working out your salvation as God works in you.
The Lord's word to you in your weakness is the same word He gave to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. That is why Paul could say he would boast gladly in weaknesses, in insults and hardships and difficulties, for when he was weak then he was strong in Christ. By faith those who were weak were made strong, not by their own resolve but by trusting God. Your weakness with the tongue and with anger is not a place for despair but a place for His power to rest on you.
Scripture is very clear about the tongue. It is a small member, like a rudder on a great ship, yet it steers the whole body. It is like a small fire that can set a whole forest ablaze. It has the power of life and death. With it we bless God our Father, and with the same tongue we can curse people who are made in His likeness, and that should not be so. A wholesome tongue is like a tree of life that brings healing, while a perverse tongue breaks the spirit. James tells us that if someone could control the tongue he could control the whole body, yet he also tells us that no person on his own can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil. What is impossible with man is possible with God. Only as you are yielded to the Holy Spirit can He do for you what you cannot do for yourself and bring the tongue under His control, to use it to encourage and strengthen and comfort and give hope.
That is why God calls us to be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. To be slow to anger is to appease strife and make peace. This is not natural to us, and you have seen that in your own life when pain or pride or a desire to protect yourself has led you to speak or write in a way that lacked love and humility and did not consider others as more important than yourself. God is gracious and compassionate, and He is able to give you a smooth and even disposition that is not easily provoked, and to teach you to keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceit.
The trials and discipline you have felt are not pleasant in the present, they feel like grief and not joy, but afterward they yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by them. God uses affliction to teach us His ways and to make us mature and complete. Tribulation produces perseverance and proven character and a hope that does not disappoint, because God pours His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. He intends to work all things together for good for those who love Him, and to renew your mind so you can discern His will. Even Jesus, the author of our salvation, was perfected through suffering and learned obedience through what He suffered, becoming the source of eternal salvation.
Continue in the remedy God has given. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed, for the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Keep abiding in Christ and in His words, which are spirit and life, and ask in the name of Jesus, the one mediator between God and men and the only name under heaven by which we must be saved. He has promised that His eyes are on the righteous and His ears are open to their cry, and that He will never leave you nor forsake you.
Father, I thank You for Your mercy and grace in time of need. I ask You to forgive and cleanse my brother for every word spoken in pride, anger or loveless haste, and for every failure to take the way of escape You provided. Fill him with Your Holy Spirit and teach him to be slow to anger and to use his tongue to heal and not to wound, to speak gracious and comforting words. Let Your power be perfected in his weakness and make him strong by faith. Train him through this discipline to bear a harvest of righteousness and peace, to walk as Jesus walked, and to find contentment in Your presence. I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
The Lord's word to you in your weakness is the same word He gave to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. That is why Paul could say he would boast gladly in weaknesses, in insults and hardships and difficulties, for when he was weak then he was strong in Christ. By faith those who were weak were made strong, not by their own resolve but by trusting God. Your weakness with the tongue and with anger is not a place for despair but a place for His power to rest on you.
Scripture is very clear about the tongue. It is a small member, like a rudder on a great ship, yet it steers the whole body. It is like a small fire that can set a whole forest ablaze. It has the power of life and death. With it we bless God our Father, and with the same tongue we can curse people who are made in His likeness, and that should not be so. A wholesome tongue is like a tree of life that brings healing, while a perverse tongue breaks the spirit. James tells us that if someone could control the tongue he could control the whole body, yet he also tells us that no person on his own can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil. What is impossible with man is possible with God. Only as you are yielded to the Holy Spirit can He do for you what you cannot do for yourself and bring the tongue under His control, to use it to encourage and strengthen and comfort and give hope.
That is why God calls us to be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. To be slow to anger is to appease strife and make peace. This is not natural to us, and you have seen that in your own life when pain or pride or a desire to protect yourself has led you to speak or write in a way that lacked love and humility and did not consider others as more important than yourself. God is gracious and compassionate, and He is able to give you a smooth and even disposition that is not easily provoked, and to teach you to keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceit.
The trials and discipline you have felt are not pleasant in the present, they feel like grief and not joy, but afterward they yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by them. God uses affliction to teach us His ways and to make us mature and complete. Tribulation produces perseverance and proven character and a hope that does not disappoint, because God pours His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. He intends to work all things together for good for those who love Him, and to renew your mind so you can discern His will. Even Jesus, the author of our salvation, was perfected through suffering and learned obedience through what He suffered, becoming the source of eternal salvation.
Continue in the remedy God has given. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed, for the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Keep abiding in Christ and in His words, which are spirit and life, and ask in the name of Jesus, the one mediator between God and men and the only name under heaven by which we must be saved. He has promised that His eyes are on the righteous and His ears are open to their cry, and that He will never leave you nor forsake you.
Father, I thank You for Your mercy and grace in time of need. I ask You to forgive and cleanse my brother for every word spoken in pride, anger or loveless haste, and for every failure to take the way of escape You provided. Fill him with Your Holy Spirit and teach him to be slow to anger and to use his tongue to heal and not to wound, to speak gracious and comforting words. Let Your power be perfected in his weakness and make him strong by faith. Train him through this discipline to bear a harvest of righteousness and peace, to walk as Jesus walked, and to find contentment in Your presence. I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
