“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” (James 1:19-20)
You see it often in the TV Shows and movies, the demonstration of a lifeless body getting shocked to help with reviving the heart and hopefully restore the heart’s rhythm quickly enough to avoid brain damages. Some of us see such in reality daily, the EMTs, the paramedics and other trained individual delivering shocks to the heart of someone that may need resuscitation. Whether it’s real or artificial, one thing you may see in the picture is a body jerking uncontrollably, nothing that I would ever hope to see on any given day. Similarly, anger causes people to act uncontrollably. Anger is like the shock delivered to anyone causing that person to act uncontrollably or to stop acting altogether once and for all.
As Christians, we’re dead to the world as someone who has no rights of the world to claim as his. We’re dead to the world as a prisoner may be dead to the rest of society. We’re dead to the world like someone who has lost all appetite for the things he once craved. We’re dead to the world by living in such a manner as if our senses are out of alignment for the world is driven by darkness. And in such darkness, lies, greed, hatred and every form of deception are practiced. So whenever we find ourselves getting upset over the world, acting uncontrollably against the world, it is almost as if we were trying to revive ourselves toward the world. It is almost as if we were trying to believe in the world again. It is almost as if we were expecting light to come out of darkness.
The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God, James said. Self-resuscitation is non-existent. Therefore, self-resuscitation toward the beliefs and values of the world will always lead to disappointment because we’re appointed to life in Christ and death to the world.
Every society has a set of core beliefs, regardless of how judgmental or unfair they may seem to others. And when a stranger from some other society comes along and shows no connection to such beliefs, you can consider such person to be dead to the beliefs and values he then finds himself exposed to. The death of a Christian to the darkness of the world is no different.
We are in a dead world and often find ourselves seeking the living among the dead. We ought to. That’s our calling. Yet, we should not lose heart when we find ten dead before we find one living. We’re sowing and harvesting. Some crops are simply not of ours. They’re simply not of light, but darkness. Should we then lose heart in the midst of the harvest simply because we’re stumbling over some bad crop? Should we then lose heart because someone is bent like a bad crop? Should we then lose heart because someone looks fruitless like a bad crop? Will our anger, our attempt to shock our own selves, our attempt to deliver CPR to ourselves, will such bring out any good?
If there’s ever a mean of resuscitation to the Christian’s mind, it should readily be the gospel. It should be the hope we have in Christ. It should be the beliefs that Christ in-stilled in us so that when we try to become what or who we used to be that we will surely fail.
The love of God for us produces the righteousness of God. By the Spirit dwelling within us alongside of our spirit, we give thanks to God for His love and the love of His Son, Christ Jesus for his righteousness he showered upon us, the righteousness that come by revelation and not by the anxiety or anger of man.
“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 5:18-21)
Righteousness came by the grace of God, not by the worries and anger of man. Righteousness is a crop of God.
Jesus is the well of the living water, the Holy Spirit. 