Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Cost of Discipleship: Brother

To be a disciple means to be completely innocent of anger.

"Anger is always an attack on the brother's life, for it refuses to let him live and aims at his destruction. Jesus will not accept the common distinction between righteous indignation and unjustifiable anger. The disciple must be entirely innocent of anger, because anger is an offense against both God and his neighbor."

The way of a disciple is self-denial. Every time we utter a word out of respect for our neighbor we place our life above his. The angry word is a blow--struck to destroy. Open insults are worse because we are disgracing our brother in the eyes of the world. This causes our hearts to burn with hatred. We are passing judgment on him and this is murder. There will be judgment for it.

He who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar.

We need to be reconciled with our brother.

The way of self-denial is the way of the cross.

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