This post was written by Jon Bloom for What the what www.desiringgod.org and can be seen here.

Sunday morning. The Bloom family is bustling to the van for church and a debate arises between two or three about who’s going to sit where. We’re cutting it close for time as it is. Out of my mouth come firm words in a sharp tone, “Stop the bickering! Get in and sit down!”

Saturday, early afternoon. The Saturday family chore list is still long and my anxiety rises when I think that we won’t get done what needs to get done. I move into sergeant mode and start barking brusque orders. Things get done but the family tone has turned surly.

Weekday night, about 9pm. I enter the children’s bedroom to give the occupants their bedtime blessing and find clothes and toys still on the floor. With a clap of my hands I tersely say, “Get up and get these things put away—now! You were told to do this earlier!” Nothing like a peaceful bedtime blessing.

Irritability. I give into it too often. It’s time to take this sin more seriously and lay it aside (Hebrews 12:1). Every time I’m irritable I burden myself with the detrimental weights of prideful selfishness and relational conflict. And as my irritation overflows on others, it burdens them too because my harsh words stir up anger in them (Proverbs 15:1).

Does God Get Irritated?

We like to blame our irritability on someone or something else. We try to convince ourselves (and them) that they make us irritated. If they were different, wewouldn’t be irritated. Or we blame it on being tired, ill, or stressed. But Paul diagnoses irritability as a heart disease; a failure to love: “Love… is not irritable” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

But we need to press on this a bit, because the Greek word that Paul uses here, paroxynō, which the ESV translates as “irritable,” can also be translated as “provoked” or “kindled,” or “incited.” It’s the same Greek word (paroxynō) that the Greek Old Testament uses in Isaiah 5:25 when the prophet said that God was provoked or kindled to anger by Israel. So if love (agape) is not provoked (1 Corinthians 13:5), and God is love (agape) (1 John 4:7), how can it be okay for God to be provoked to anger?

The answer is that being provoked to anger in general isn’t the issue Paul is addressing. He (and we) knows there are just, righteous, loving, and therefore necessary reasons to be provoked to anger. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:5 is addressing the short fuse, our becoming too quickly or too easily provoked to anger. That’s why the ESV chose “irritable” and why the KJV translators chose “easily provoked.”

When God gets angry, he takes a remarkably slow time to get there (Exodus 34:6). God is provoked to anger, but he is never irritable. He only gets angry for very good reasons, when the glory of his holy righteousness and justice is despised and violated. And his anger, though when unleashed is the most devastating and terrifying thing any conscious being can experience, is always thoughtful, faultlessly appropriate, and perfectly measured. And like God, we too are to be “slow to anger” (James 1:19). We are to be angry, but not sin (Ephesians 4:26).

The Selfishness of Irritation

Our irritability never has its roots in the soils of righteousness. It springs out of the soil of selfishness and springs up fast, like the sin-weed that it is. We get irritated or easily provoked, not when God’s righteousness or justice is scorned, but when something we want is being denied, delayed, or disrupted. It works like this:

• When I’m weary I want rest, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.
• When I’m sick or in pain I want relief, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.
• When I’m preoccupied I want uninterrupted focus, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.
• When I’m running late I want to avoid appearing negligent, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.
• When I’m disappointed I want my desire fulfilled, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.
• When I’m fearful I want escape from a threat, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.
• When I’m uncertain I want certainty, preferably reassuring, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.
• When I’m enjoying something I want to continue until I wish to be done, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

The reason irritability is unloving, unrighteous anger is that it is a selfish response to an obstacle to our desire. What we desire may not be sinful, but a selfish response to its denial, delay, or disruption is a failure to trust God at all times (Psalm 62:8) — and often a failure to value, love, and serve another human soul.

Jesus didn’t die for our punctuality, earthly reputation, convenience, or our leisure. But he did die for souls. It is likely that the worth of the soul(s) we’re irritable with is infinitely more precious to God than the thing we desire. We must not dishonor God, whose image that person bears, by being irritable with them. There are necessary times for considered, thoughtful, measured, righteous, loving anger at priceless but sinful souls. But there is never a right time for irritability. Love is not irritable.

S.T.O.P. Being Irritable

If you’re like me and have cultivated over the course of your life a habitual indulgence in selfish irritation, it’s going to take some hard work to retrain ourselves in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). We need something simple to call to mind when the oft-pulled irritation trigger is squeezed. This might be helpful:

• S. — Stop, repent, and ask. We must awkwardly stop immediately — even mid-rant — to repent of our sin, and ask, “What am I desiring that is being denied, delayed or disrupted?”
• T. — Trust a promise. Collect promises like 2 Corinthians 9:8, Philippians 4:19, and Philippians 4:11–13 to trust that combat your areas of temptation to irritation.
• O. — Obey. Remember that your emotions are gauges, not guides. Don’t let irritation reign in you (Romans 6:12). As you obey 1 Corinthians 13:5 in faith you will find that your emotions will, however reluctantly at first, follow. Love obeys (John 14:15).
• P. — Plan. Yes, plan. More forethought and intention can be a spiritual discipline, an act of love, and a weapon against sin by avoiding temptations to irritability. Ask yourself, “When am I frequently irritable?” To test your self-understanding, ask this question of those who know you best (and often may be the recipients of your irritation). And based on the answers, seek to put into place some systems and habits that will remove irritable stumbling blocks from your path. Pursue the escape from temptation offered by the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:13) by taking advantage of the grace of planning.

Don’t be discouraged by the fact that this is hard going at first. Changing ingrained habits is hard work. But it is possible through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13). Keep working at it. Faithful effort to lay aside this weight will result in lighter, more loving, and more joyful faith-running down the road.

Related resources:

• Lay Aside the Weight of “Not Feeling Like It”
• Lay Aside the Weight of Self-Indulgence
• Two Kinds of Regret, One Kind of Hope

Why is this happening to me? What is my purpose in this life? If God is so powerful, then why does He allow me to be treated this way by people who are opposed to Him? Will God ever give me victory over this particular sin?

These are the types of questions that pepper the ordinary Christian life. Christians want an explanation from God for their current suffering and a steadfast promise that their own life will turn out well. Christians know that “for those who love God all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28), but it is one thing to memorize it in a Scripture memory program and quite another to believe it when life punches you in the gut.

But as all Christians discover in time, God does not always provide explanations for the suffering or the confusing events that sum up life in this broken world. And that is why the doctrine of the church is so important.

The church is the community of the blood-bought saints, scattered across chronology, geography, and ethnicity. The church is a collection of people dearly loved by God. That means that the story of the church is a tapestry, a stained-glass window of stories. Your triumphs and failures, your sins and sanctification, are a part of the story of the local church of which you are a member. The story of your local church is just one piece of the story of the church universal, helping us see how our own tangible experience that inspires such deep questioning of God is a small part of the story of the church as a whole.

This, then, is our touch point. So much of the ordinary Christian life starts, continues, and ends without a specific explanation from the Lord. But God has made promises as to how the story of the church will go in the world. When the Christian roots his story in his local church’s story, which is a part of the story of the universal church, he finds comfort and rich promises from the Lord.

THE CHURCH AND SPIRITUAL WARFARE

Are you ever discouraged by the spiritual warfare that is so often a part of the ordinary Christian life? Jesus reminds us in Matthew 16:18 that He builds His church, and the gates of hell will not stand against it. Jesus builds and protects His church. The church of Jesus will win in the end. With victory secured, your spiritual skirmishes are divine mop-up missions.

THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD

Are you ever discouraged by what the world thinks of you because of your testimony to Jesus? Do you ever wish that the gospel would be seen for what it is by all its naysayers? Because you are a part of the universal church and a local church, you can be sure that your story is careening toward a grand revelation of Jesus as King and His followers as glorious saints. Paul in Ephesians 3:10 encourages us that the manifold wisdom of God is being displayed in the church as the vanguard of that day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

THE CHURCH AND GOD’S PURPOSES

Do you ever wish you could know for sure that you are a part of God’s unfolding plan? When Paul was converted, Jesus asked him why Paul was persecuting Him. Paul didn’t have a response because he didn’t know he was persecuting Jesus as he was persecuting the church (Acts 8:3; 9:4). Jesus so closely aligned Himself with the church that in several places in the New Testament the two—Jesus and the church—are synonymous. Simply put, God’s continuing work in the world through Jesus occurs in the church. So if you are an ordinary Christian, part of an ordinary local church, then you are a part of God’s ongoing and unfolding plan in the world.

THE CHURCH AND YOUR SIN

Are you ever weighed down by your sin, longing for the day that you will be free from it? In Ephesians 5:27, Paul promises that one day Jesus will finish His work of perfecting His bride, the church. On that day, she will be without spot and blemish.

Christian, you are a part of that church, so you will be a part of that spotless, beautiful bride one day. God’s work in you personally is a part of His work in your local church, which is a part of His work in His church as a whole. As you are sanctified, so the church as a whole is sanctified. And when the church is glorified in the presence of King Jesus, so will you participate in that glory.

Your name does not appear in the pages of Scripture. But the name of God’s people, the church, does. The normal, ordinary Christian life is framed by participation in a local church and so taps into all the promises of God given to this outrageously blessed group of people.

There is an answer to the difficult questions Christians ask. Your experiential questions find answers in the experience of the church about whom God has said much. Do you want to live a confident, ordinary Christian life that will bear extraordinary fruit for all eternity? Invest deeply as you participate in a beloved, ordinary local church.

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desiringgod.org · by Jonathan Parnell · July 28, 2014

When Jesus speaks we listen.

That makes sense, right? Jesus is the one to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given (Matthew 28:18). Jesus is the one of whom it will be said, forever, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12). He’s the one to whom every knee will bow (Philippians 2:10) — the one by whom all the tribes of the earth will wail (Revelation 1:7), and from whom the fury of God’s wrath will be executed (Revelation 19:15).

Jesus has that kind of supremacy — so what he says matters.

And beyond that, we’ve been united to Jesus by faith (Romans 6:5), made alive in him by grace (Ephesians 2:4–5), counted righteous in him because of his work (Galatians 2:16). Jesus, in all of his supremacy, is also our shepherd — so we know his voice (John 10:27).

Therefore, by virtue of his power and grace, because he is the Sovereign and our Savior, when he tells his church to make disciples of all nations, we really want to do that.

Toward a Definition

Jesus commissions us to “go” — because of his authority — “and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20).

This raises a fundamental question, though — one that even takes priority over the how-to’s of discipleship. What does it actually mean to be a “disciple” of Jesus? If we are going to make disciples, we need to know what that is.

The standard definition of “disciple” (noun) is someone who adheres to the teachings of another. It is a follower or a learner. It refers to someone who takes up the ways of someone else. Applied to Jesus, a disciple is someone who learns from him to live like him — someone who, because of God’s awakening grace, conforms his or her words and ways to the words and ways of Jesus. Or, you might say, as others have put it in the past, disciples of Jesus are themselves “little Christs” (Acts 26:28; 2 Corinthians 1:21).

The four Gospels give us the definitive portrait of Jesus in his life on earth, and if we really want to know what it means to be his disciple, the Gospels are likely where we start. In particular, John’s Gospel shows us three complementary perspectives on what it means to follow Jesus, each patterned after Jesus himself. Building off of John’s profile, we could say that a disciple of Jesus is a worshiper, a servant, and a witness.

Disciple Means Worshiper

Most fundamentally, to follow Jesus means to worship him exclusively. This is at the heart of Jesus’s ministry on earth. As he told the woman at the well, the Father is seeking true worshipers — not faux worshipers, but true worshipers — those who worship him in spirit and truth (John 4:23–24). Which means, as it did in her case, we shouldn’t be so quick to change the subject. If we will follow Jesus, we must worship God — through Jesus, because he is our Mediator (John 14:6; 1 Timothy 2:5), and Jesus himself, because he is God (John 10:30; 20:28–29).

This is the fundamental perspective of a disciple because it is more ultimate than anything else we are or do, and most distinctive in our context. As far as ultimate, worshiping Jesus — gladly reflecting back to him the radiance of his worth — is the greatest act for any creature. As far as context, nothing will irritate our pluralistic society more than being an exclusive worshiper of Jesus. Lots of people are cool with Jesus (at least their notion of him), and even following the “ways” of Jesus, when it leaves out the exclusivity part. Jesus the Moral Teacher, the Nice Guy, the Judge-Not-Lest-You-Be-Judged Motivational Speaker — that Jesus is everybody’s homeboy. But that is not the real Jesus. That’s a manmade figure — a far cry from the portrait Jesus gives of himself.

To follow Jesus, to be his disciple, doesn’t mean community involvement and the veneer of tolerance. It means, mainly, first and central, to worship him — with joy at the heart. Making disciples of Jesus means gathering his worshipers.

Disciple Means Servant

John shows another picture of the Jesus we’re to worship, and this time he is kneeling before his disciples to wash their feet (John 13:5). I know, it doesn’t sound right, especially when we think of him as the object of our exclusive praise. It didn’t sound right to Peter either, until Jesus said, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (John 13:8). But Jesus is a servant. He came to earth not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as the rescue for sinners (Mark 10:45).

And as a servant, Jesus says of his disciples, to his disciples, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you” (John 13:14–15). In one sense, the posture of servant should characterize Jesus’s disciples on all fronts. But in another sense, being a servant like Jesus has a particular focus on disciples serving disciples. It’s a family thing. “Let us do good to everyone,” Paul said, “and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10).

This one-another angle is where Jesus takes us in giving “a new commandment,” just after he washed the Twelve’s feet: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34; 1 John 3:23). In fact, it is this love that disciples have for one another that identifies us as disciples of Jesus to a watching world (John 13:35), and even assures us of saving faith (1 John 3:14).

To be a disciple of Jesus means to serve like him. It means to serve, primarily, by looking at your brothers and sisters and going low in acts of love, even when it’s an inconvenience to yourself, even when it flip-flops the world’s social order and expectations. Making disciples of Jesus means making servants who love one another.

Disciple Means Witness

John gives us another helpful picture of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. This time it comes in the commission of Jesus, when he says of his disciples, to his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21; John 17:18). This means that Jesus’s disciples are on a mission. It means, in the broadest sense, that they are missionaries, that they are envisioned and empowered to step into this world (not of it, but sent into it) as his witnesses (Acts 1:8).

Jesus was sent for a purpose — to reveal God and redeem sinners (John 1:14, 12) — and he set his face like flint to see it accomplished (Luke 9:51; Isaiah 50:7). We too, as his disciples, filled by his Spirit, are sent for a purpose — to tell his good news (Romans 10:14–17).

To be a disciple of Jesus means to point people to him. It means to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love so that others would know him and worship him. It means, in other words, that we gladly seek more worshipers-servants-missionaries. Which is to say, a disciple of Jesus makes disciples of Jesus, as Jesus tells us to (Matthew 28:18–20).

And, of course, when Jesus speaks we listen.

More on discipleship:

Are You Too Christian for Non-Christians?

Jonathan Parnell (@jonathanparnell) is a writer and content strategist at Desiring God. He lives in the Twin Cities with his wife, Melissa, and their four children, and is the co-author of How to Stay Christian in Seminary.