But the fruit
of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who
belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-25 (NIV)
Someone made me so
angry today that I just wanted to fight.
I wanted to shout
angry mean words at them. And tell them how I felt.
But then I remembered
that isn’t what Jesus would do.
It’s not that Jesus
didn’t get angry. He did. It’s that when he did, he allowed the Holy Spirit to
take the lead.
Jesus allowed his
own passions and desires to take second place to what the Holy Spirit wanted.
And as Jesus did
that, as he allowed love to replace hate, joy to replace sorrow, peace to
replace irritation and patience to replace annoyance he made people want a
relationship with him.
So often we allow
anger to destroy our relationships. We speak too quickly, and we do not take
the time to ask the Holy Spirit to replace our negative feelings with his
passions and desires.
It is difficult in
the heat of the moment to stop and pray - harder still to share love, joy and
peace instead of a piece of your mind – but it’s possible.
Today someone made
me so angry that I just wanted to fight.
Instead I prayed
that the Holy Spirit would take all the anger and pain and hurt and replace it
with his passions and desires, I prayed that God would show me how to act in
love, joy, peace and patience. I prayed that he would help to preserve the
relationship that my anger tried to destroy.
If you are feeling
angry with someone right now pray that the Holy Spirit will come and exchange
your passions and desires with his.
Did you enjoy this? Wendy
shares devotionals every Monday and Thursday over at ilovedevotionals.com You can also connect with
her on Facebook and Twitter.
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