The Heart and Anger - 1Cor 13:5

The apostle Paul to both the Ephesian and church in Corinth speaks to them about "not keeping a record of wrongs". As Christians we should understand of just how important this is. Christ "whilst we were still yet sinners died for us" as it says in Romans. And we know that God's favour towards us is due to his grace and mercy. Yet even as believers and followers of our Lord Jesus it is easy to harden our hearts not only to those that would obviously not like or love us but even towards those who we know should love us. That is our family and friends which are close to us.

What causes these accounts of wrong are vast and many, something as simply as a word out of place to unfaithfulness in marriage. Many of these things often give us a feeling of the right to be angry yet just as God's love towards us is unconditional so too must our ability to forgive those who wrong us.

When we keep a record of being wronged as one version states it, it is almost like we are adding stones which become lodged in our hearts. Proverbs tells us "to not let the sun go down on our wrath" and it would appear that our need to release people from our judgement must be daily. Just as Christ said "if anyone would come after me he must deny himself and daily take up his cross and follow me." Forgiveness and our ability to stop these stones from filling our hearts must be done daily to ensure these stones are not lodged in our hearts.

The wonderful news of the gospel is that in spite of the current condition of our hearts God in his mercy sent Jesus to set us free and to release us from our oppression as we read in Isaiah 61:1. As we submit our hearts and lives over to king Jesus and ask him to work on our hearts and the hardness which has been caused by the adding of these stones over many years "HE IS ABLE" to perform miracles and wonders within us. Giving us again hearts which are not callous and hard but soft and open to the promptings of His Holy spirit.

In a vision this morning I saw just this, a heart which God was soften by removing one stone after another. And whilst God is able to simply remove all of them at once, I believe he will often soften our hearts slower to give us the time to pray for and even bless those who have hardened our hearts with their wrongs in the first place.

God Bless