John Calvin on Psalm 12

From verses 1-2 on how Christians are called to be a reflection of the truth

"We who would act truthfully, therefore, must be like a mirror, in which the uprighteous of our hearts may be clearly seen."

From verses 5-6 and the value of God's Word

"The illustration of silver, though far below the dignity of so great a subject, is appropriate to our limited and imperfect understanding. Yet we rarely set sufficient value on the Word of God, and in our futile thinking we can even obscure or efface the brightness shining in His promises."

Getting Angry at Myself part 2

Continuing the theme from the previous post, the second way that self-anger can play out in our lives and what it can reveal is

2. The person who is angry at himself may not see or be willing to acknowledge the depth of his own sinful nature.

A few quotes again from Robert T. Jones to help us see how this works. First, in our thought process when we get angry at ourselves, we can be thinking,

"I still can't believe that I-I, a good moral person, I, the great I - actually did such a dastardly thing.", Uprooting Anger, 133

As Jones then wisely points out, this thought reveals,
"Your self-anger may simply be the result of naively believing that you are better than you are really are." Ibid, 133

Sometimes when I get mad at myself, I will hear myself say that I should have known better, but to say that can reveal that I think I can do well enough on my own. My failure reminds me of my need for God's strength again, His enablement and a reminder of my need for the forgiveness Christ provided through His death and resurrection. When I sin, it reminds me again that I'm a sinner, and instead of thinking that I should have known better, I can rest in one who not only knew better but did better, He lived perfection and gave that perfection to me through His death.
My self-anger reveals that I'm worse than I thought but the cross shows me that it can be and is better than I could have hoped for.

Getting Angry at Myself

I am going through the book Uprooting Anger by Robert T. Jones, and yesterday I came to the chapter about getting angry at ourselves. I was tempted to skip over this chapter because on the surface I didn't think this was an issue in my life. Thank God that He prompted me to go through this chapter, because it has convicted and confronted me about many areas of my life where this self-anger is at work. Over the next couple of days, I will share the lessons from the chapter on where this struggle can creep in.

Today, the first instruction

1. The person who is angry with himself may simply be expressing his inability or unwillingness to grasp and receive God's forgiveness.

Jones describes that this can happen when, "I'm mad at me because, while my conscience tells me I deserve punishment, in my unbelief I do not see God's judgment and forgiveness concurrently poured out on me." Uprooting Anger, Robert T. Jones, 131.

Later, he says also that, "Perhaps the person [struggling with self-anger] has not gripped the scope and depth of God's forgiving grace and power." Uprooting Anger, 131.

Let me play out how this can work. We sin, we get angry at our spouse or our roommate or a co-worker and then later become convicted of our sin. However, instead of turning to the cross, remembering the forgiveness and grace to obey purchased there, we beat ourselves up, thinking we should have known better and so there is something I need to do to be better next time. Without bringing the cross into view though, this battle and self-anger will repeat itself because there is nothing I can do in myself to remedy the problem and the guilt that ensues from self-anger will lead me away from the only sure remedy, Jesus as I focus more on myself.

If there is a sin we committed today or one that we committed recently and we are walking around angry at ourselves, condemning ourselves that "it" happened again, might we remember the true remedy for sin, the remedy that takes guilt and judgment away, Jesus Christ.