No Murder. I'm good with that! Check.
But in the kingdom of heaven, where everyone has eternal life, murder is not even a real threat. Jesus teaches that death has no power in his kingdom, but anger, now that is a serious issue. Murder is just a symptom of the disease which leads to death, anger. Anger starts by torturing you, slowly, and then makes you want to kill others as it
progresses. Anger is a god who rules in
the kingdom of earth, it is a kingdom of earth emotion that results in kingdom
of earth problems, namely death. Anger
is a violation of the principles which govern heaven, love and life. Anger violates both. Anger is opposed to both.
The experience of anger is similar to fear or anxiety. It has a powerful, seemingly unstoppable
control over the physical body. It
causes the release of poisonous chemicals into your bloodstream which cause
your body to tense up, constrict, divert blood flow, cause erratic heart
palpitations, corrupts digestive processes, wear thin the lining of certain
organs, and cloud mental processes. It
disrupts sleep, can cause headaches, blurry vision, and back problems. It affects appetites, attitudes,
expectations, and memory. And it is not permitted
past the gate into the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus explains that anger exposes a man to the fire of hell. It’s as if the Devil wants to make us into the
perfect s'more. Like a
marshmallow on a stick placed high above the fire, exposed through anger. Anger places that marshmallow perfectly over the
flame. The exposure and heat take a little time, but left there, and turned ever so cautiously, things begin
to happen. It takes patience to
do it right, to destroy someone with anger. You don’t want to burn them
up right away, but slowly, watch them suffer and throw their life away. The exposure first leads to inflammation, and a crispy
shell. The insides then melt and boil until the
marshmallow loses its own form. Its' shell eventually gives way and the whole
thing falls into the fire to be consumed.
Since allowing anger into Heaven would so violate the
reality of that kingdom, any person who has visions of sneaking it in should
give up that fantasy right now. God
would rather you got out of line and leave the altar, walk away from church,
don’t put a penny in the offering plate, don’t dare try to take communion if
you are doing so harboring anger as a stowaway in your mind.
While the forgiveness of God extends to the ends of the earth, a person unwilling to yield his own anger before judgment will, according to Jesus, spend the rest
of his life in the debtor's prison, where he is judged as he has judged, unable
to go free until he pay his own debt, and justify himself without any means.
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