THE JOURNEY SO FAR

NOTE: Because of an operator malfunction, I lost the original journal from cyberspace... so I'm reposting the original posts along with their original dates of appearance for those who wanted to start from the beginning.

Originally posted June 1, 2006

Last night Ruth and I decided we’d finally run out of steam and thought we’d watch a movie. We went over to a friend’s place that has a bunch of DVD’s to find one we hadn’t watched. If you’ve ever seen this film where nothing goes right is complicated further by Jack Lemmon’s character George, an uptight out of towner in New York who blames everyone for making him miserable. He collects a list of names of anyone he gets mad at throughout the film, threatening to take everyone to court for everything from bad weather to bad service. They owed him.

Then this morning before breakfast I watched a sermon by Andy Stanley on (you guessed it...) anger. He spoke of the system of debt and debtor we often use in relationships. Anger says "You owe me". When we're hurt or offended something's been taken from you. Your anger says "you owe me."

Regardless of where the blame lies, getting rid of anger is more important than getting paid back. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other.” Getting rid of bitterness by-passes the issue of fairness.

Ephesians 4:31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Decide to cancel the debt by "forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you." Jesus was blameless, and we owed God for our sin. God decided to close the debt on our sins by paying for the debt through Christ's death.

If God can do that, I can close the debt on those who hurt me. You can't really get paid back anyway. People can't get their first marriage, their childhood, their innocence back. But forgiveness rakes out the junk of anger.

Check out the sermon at http://www.northpoint.org/sermons. Then get some popcorn and a soft drink and enjoy the movie.