God’s Healing For Anger
Of all our emotions, anger is a strong, and potentially the most destructive. Anger for many people has become an uncontrollable emotion. The expression of anger is on the rise. People feel no hesitancy today in taking out their rage against another person in ways that are not pleasing to God.
It is a sad fact that anger can often do more harm to the person who expresses it than to the person who is on the receiving end of it. It is not surprising that anger is mentioned as the forerunner of sin throughout the Scriptures.
Proverbs 29:22 tells us: “An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.” We have many descriptions of anger as rage: Road rage, cell phone rage, shopping rage, grocery cart rage, and on and on. Paul tells us that “fits of rage” is a work of the flesh in Gal. 5:20 where it is included with idolatry and witchcraft.
Scripture also tells us that not all anger is sin: “Be angry, and yet do not sin” (Eph. 4:26).
Jesus experienced anger and yet did not sin. It is our relationship to Christ that gives us hope and power to deal successfully with anger. We sometimes call this “righteous indignation.” We all want justice, fairness, and for wrongs to be righted.
We need to object to something that God identifies as wrong–but at the same time we must not sin. Paul tells us not to repay “evil for evil” and on the positive side we are to “do what is honorable….” He continues saying that we are to live peaceably with all–as far as it depends on us (Rom. 12:17-18).
Therefore how can we be angry and yet not sin?
First, we must always love and have compassion for others. Paul’s advice in Eph. 4:31-32 is that we must “get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”
That is a hard thing to do – unless you are committed to Christ! Then, we must not nurse our anger.
That means we don’t protect it and keep it growing in our heart. While sundown is used here probably as a figure of speech, it is an excellent way to assess the state of your anger. Anger that we ...
