Right to Anger

Transcript

Good morning and greetings in Jesus’ name!
Welcome to this amazing new morning, this amazing new day!
I hope that the Lord would continue to work on our hearts. That you would allow the Lord continual access into every nook and corner of your life.
Whenever we allow the Lord access into our lives, and allow Him to change and mould us, He fills us with divine grace, strength and character. All of a sudden we begin to talk a lot like Jesus, function like Him and serve and love others the way He did.
Every time the Holy Spirit transforms us on the inside, we begin to look like Jesus on the outside. I’m sure that is what you want to be, your goal; to represent Jesus here on the Earth. The Lord will continue to reveal everything in us that doesn’t look, feel or talk like Him.

For example, God spoke to Jonah, the prophet of God (preacher, revivalist or evangelist) in the great city of Nineveh. The Lord spoke to him in Jonah 4:4, it says, “then the Lord said, Is it right for you to be angry?” God is not condemning him, or putting him down but asking him a question which repeats again in the same chapter where the Lord asks him later, “Is it right for you to be angry about this plant?”

We all know the story of Jonah. He had to go to a place he didn’t want to go, so that those people could hear the word of God. He didn’t want the people to repent and be saved from judgement. This is why he tried his best to avoid preaching in the city of Nineveh.
Ultimately God had His way, Jonah went and preached the gospel and the entire city turned around.
This caused Jonah to be upset at these people over the grace and love of God over their nation. That is when God asked him the question because there were so many things that he freely enjoyed from Him.
That very same day, God allowed a tree to grow and give him shade. Jonah got upset again when the tree died. That’s when God said that he hadn’t laboured for the tree but that it was God’s provision and that Jonah was angry that it was taken away. So, God questioned him if it was right that he got angry that the people were being saved and blessed.

Sometimes, as a church, we’ve tried to withhold the love of God to the world around us because we are angry at them and don’t want them to be saved or think that they deserve the Heaven that we are about to enter or that they deserve a relationship with Jesus. And the Lord is asking us today, “is it right for you to be angry or to withhold the mercy and the grace of God from the people around you?”

Jesus told His disciples, “anybody you forgive, I will forgive and anybody you withhold forgiveness, I will also do the same.” Which means, when we walk around the city or the nation, and we find crimes and other abusive behaviour, as a child of God, we have the right to be angry and to refrain from forgiving them, God will not forgive them. But if we keep away the right to anger, not at the sin but at the sinner, instead show the love of God to the sinner, and release forgiveness, then God will also extend His hand of mercy and grace over them.

Jonah was a product of God’s mercy, else he would have been food for the fish! It is also the same mercy by which we experience and taste the goodness of God in the land of the living, by which we have access to His voice, that we can live and breathe the presence of the Holy Spirit. So, we cannot be angry at the world around us or stop them from receiving Jesus. Unforgiveness can be a stumbling block to revival in your city. So be a channel of love by our words and actions instead of a condemning attitude. I pray that every anger, unforgiveness towards our city, neighbourhood, nation, where we are called to be a salt and light to, will be removed in the mighty name of Jesus and as a result, revival will once again come, the light of God will spread.

Let’s pray: Father, we thank you for the word, for this revelation. We believe that we do not have the right to be angry at anybody or anything and that we are objects and the carriers of your mercy. We surrender the right today in the mighty name of Jesus. Father we ask for the light, the grace of God to flood all those people, homes and environments, as a result of us releasing forgiveness into those environments, the love of God into those homes. We thank you for the new, fresh wave that is coming. In the mighty name of Jesus we pray, Amen.