ANGER: Human Volcanoes

It's tough living with a volcano that could go off any minute. Could that be how the people around you feel?

When the stress, pressure, and aggravation build up, maybe you become a human volcano - blowing up and doing some serious damage, especially to people you love. Like a volcano, the eruption is over fairly quickly, but the damage it does can last a lifetime.

Maybe your temper is part of your "dark side" and it is out of control all too often. It may be the devastating things that you say and do when you're angry, your selfishness that continually wounds and crushes people, or a sour negativity and bitterness that poisons your life and the lives of people around you. It's all deadly molten lava that keeps spewing out of your life - often hurting most the people you love most.

The battle you fight with your explosive dark side is not a new battle; it's at least 2,000 years old. Romans 7:15 says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." That's a struggle we all understand too well, isn't it? The way we treat our mate, our children, our co-workers, and maybe our friends. We don't want to be that way, but we just can't seem to stop. The passage goes on to say in Romans 7:18-19 , "I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing." How many times have we resolved to do better and failed?

There is good news, because the Bible shows us how to move from despair to deliverance. Romans 7:24-25 says, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" That's just what we need. We need a rescuer, someone who can lift us out of the trap of this sin-mess. That's where the hope is! Jesus Christ came here to deal once and for all with this sin monster that's so powerful inside us, sin that cuts us off from God now and forever. Jesus went to a cross where He died to absorb all the power and all the death penalty of our sin. Then He declared total victory three days later when He walked out of His grave under His own power!

He wants to bring that victory into your life to forgive every sinful, hurtful thing you've ever done and give you a new beginning. He stands ready to actually move into your heart, to control what you have never been able to control, and to beat what has always beaten you. He's the Rescuer reaching for you. Now it's up to you to reach back and grab His hand and tell Him, "Jesus, You are my only hope. I don't want to be like this anymore. I'm placing all my trust in you to be my Savior from my sin." With Him in your life, you don't have to be what you've always been. You can be what the Bible calls "a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17 ).

When Jesus was on earth, He was with His disciples in a violent storm that threatened to destroy them until He stepped to the helm and said three words: "Peace, be still!" The storm was gone. Today, He wants to do that for the storm that rages inside you.