1 Tim 2 W/ Testimony Anger turned into Love

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

If the e-mail text you receive is encrypted at all, just scroll down to the end of all of the text and click on Lena’s Journalin’ , which will take you directly to the web-page where you will be able to read the text quite clearly in it’s purposed form.

1 Timothy 2
Instructions about Worship
1 I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. 2 Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. 3 This is good and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. 5 For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. 6 He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time. 7 And I have been chosen as a preacher and apostle to teach the Gentiles this message about faith and truth. I’m not exaggerating—just telling the truth.
8 In every place of worship, I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God, free from anger and controversy.
9 And I want women to be modest in their appearance.[a] They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. 10 For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do.
11 Women should learn quietly and submissively. 12 I do not let women teach men or have authority over them.[b] Let them listen quietly. 13 For God made Adam first, and afterward he made Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived by Satan. The woman was deceived, and sin was the result. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing,[c] assuming they continue to live in faith, love, holiness, and modesty.
Footnotes:
a. 1 Timothy 2:9 Or to pray in modest apparel.
b. 1 Timothy 2:12 Or teach men or usurp their authority.
c. 1 Timothy 2:15 Or will be saved by accepting their role as mothers, or will be saved by the birth of the Child.

~ Lena’s Journalin’~
When we lift our hands we are saying we are free men, we have surrendered our own lordship to the Lord, and we trust Him enough to know He has all sides covered. We are arrested by His love, captured by His grace, slaves to his work, on purpose.
Anger is a symptom of needing, yet not feeling we have, control. Think of when it started. It began when you were a very small child and at one point you learned in this new world of yours, you would not always get your way. If you had a wise and understanding caregiver, you did not get your way and were able to see the world does not at all revolve around you. You were guided into your part of the big picture and how your part serves the whole.
Anger may have risen up in you about not getting your way, or your threw a temper tantrum. Way back when, whoever was training you, may have given in to your tantrum (STOP here, I’m NOT speaking of abusive situations, be careful not to throw that thought in with this one just yet. This is Normal child development I’m speaking of). Anyway, if you were able to “get your own way”, you saw it worked, now you can get angry and get your way, and you’ve just been trained to do so. The more you got your way, the more angered you were. Children are not supposed to get their way. They receive security by being guided by a parent in authority and after a few training sessions of guided decisions, they are not angry, they are secure, they learn to make good and firm decisions based on the direction of an experienced guide.
Yes, anger can also come from abuse. It can be like a wall of protection to keep people at distance so that no one can further abuse you. The thing is that that anger is usually uncontrolled and we’re not angry at the abuser, we get angered by anyone or anything that crosses us in any way that is not our way. God is our “parent” in this situation and has provided our deliverance from the abusers - especially if we are now grown and away from the situations. He’s saying, give me that weapon, I’ll care for you. I’ll protect you. Now that we are grown, we can come to Christ and surrender all of the feelings we had as a child and give Him control of our lives. God is calling each of us into a healing relationship with His Son, who will help us grow and come out of the past that is trying to chain us to it as a slave would be.
I was struggling with something, a family thing way in my past. In fact I was 5. I was thinking about it, asking God to help heal me of fears I’d carried all these years. He showed me I had to be brave and face the fear. I did not want to, because it hurt me, and made me angry, but I told Him I trusted Him and I would do it. As I was taking God-led steps towards facing “my giants” I felt some of the old feelings of being 5 and in a situation that was so scary to a 5 year old. It was amazing that as I faced the deal I saw it was not as bad as I’d made it to be in my mind, not as hard to face as I thought. I heard the Lord say to me reassuredly, “You are NOT 5 Lena, you are 40 AND you are NOT alone, you have ME, you were alone then, but now you’re not and you’re NOT 5!”
I went right there to that place I needed to face. In a vision I saw my mom, who was only 23 at the time. Of course in my mind she was 35 plus, mature, intended to hurt me, leave me alone, etc. But suddenly the perspective changed. I saw more of a real picture. She needed help, she did not mean to scare me (of course in our minds we believe lies from the enemy that tells us people intend these hard things), and she needed God too. I was able to let the fear and dread go, I was able to forgive her for not being able to care for me as a matured person who was whole herself. I was freed from my burden of fear and anger I carried for 35 years!
Years later our dad abandoned us, and that hurt too. I did not realize how much it hurt and how I was expecting everyone who came my way to not be able to be trusted. I was looking at everyone through these glasses of being abandoned by a man. As I grew I thought he must not have loved us and he must have been very selfish etc. I was also angry at not being loved and had a very low self esteem. I never believed anyone who said they loved me or would compliment me. I felt unworthy of love. A time after the Lord revealed this thinking to my heart. I was sad, I cried and told the Lord I wanted to forgive my dad. I was in my room alone and was crying, so sad to not have been loved etc. in a vision I saw my dad, a young boy. His mom had been married 8 times. She’d meet a man who did not want the whole package and so she’d choose him and had a weird way of doing it. She had 6 children by different men and at various times she’d leave her kids at others houses and not get them for years if at all. If the man died or the marriage went sour, she’d pick them back up at whim. It was so strange. It was like, “ok I’m here, where’s Richard?”, “Ok Gloria, let’s go…” She was 15 when she first married and her husband was like 54! He already had kids, older than her. He died. She remarried and got pregnant w/ my dad and one week after his birth his real dad died. These were the examples he lived with. This was normal, at least what he knew as normal. She changed her name many times over. So did my dad. He was an alcoholic, he did not stay with us when it got hard….I began to cry more. I said, “Father I forgive Him, he did not know what he was doing – to me.” My anger and hurt melted away in the pure secure and steadfast love of Christ. I realized I can never rely on men or women, God is my only reliance! Not that I won’t trust, love or serve people, no, I will, for His love, and Un2Him, because He is all I need, He is everything, my all in all. If I depend on someone else, it’s like idolatry. I repented for depending on man to make me who I am.

Here is a sample prayer for authority based on this passage:
Dear Father in the name of Jesus, I pray for those who have rule over our lives, parents, spouses teachers, city leaders, county leaders, state and federal government leaders. I lift up to You in intercession, our local pastor, other pastors in our community, and ministers of the gospel throughout our land. I forgive them of their short comings and I release the power of God to minister love and hope to them in their personal lives.
Father I ask that you’d forgive me for any words of criticism I’ve spoken against them in their places of service. I silence any critical spirits and I loose the ministering angels to bring them wisdom, comfort and peace.
I pray Lord that they will understand the height, depth, breath and width of Your great and powerful love. I pray that spiritual blinders will be removed off of their eyes and spiritual deafness will unstop their ears. I pray they will see and know the Truth, who is found in the person of Christ Jesus the Lord. I pray they will be surrounded by witness of the covenant love of God and they’ll make Jesus Lord. I thank you Lord, for the salvation of their souls, and for surrounding them with faithful committed laborers in the harvest fields. I ask that You’ll keep them from falling, keep them from evil and from the evil one. I pray their feet would be kept from stumbling, and that any evil plan to put them out or embarrass them would be well taken care of, intercepted and repented of. I nullify the lies that have been spoken over their lives and I command Truth to prevail. Bring words of Truth, and messengers of Truth into their lives today.
I bless and do not curse them, in fact I command the blessing to come to them, to chase after them to order their day.
Father, as You bless them, we are blessed, and have peace. Flood them with Your peace. Your peace is salvation, wholeness and soundness of mind. Cause their minds to be filled with godly thoughts, and to make decisions based on conviction that comes from the principles of Your word. Save our nation from the rule of the ungodly. Steer hearts and minds towards the Lordship of Christ. Draw men unto Yourself. Strengthen us who are ministers to be a bright and shinning light inside of our community. Cause a holy boldness to be about us everyday. Fill us today to overflow as examples in our homes, churches, and workplaces.
We thank you for continued freedom to make Godly choices. Thank you for liberty to share the gospel message in our land. We speak to doors and gates and thank you that we have the keys to their opening wide for the gospel message to be well received in the hearts and lives of our leaders. We open the gates and doors through prayer, we tell them to swing wide and receive the Truth. To buy it and sell it not.
In Jesus’ name , Amen!

Daily Thought to Ponder -
“Oh Give Thanks to the Lord for He is Good!”