Anger is described as being an emotional state of mild annoyance to extreme and intense rage and agitation. It can be at times a wonderful motivator but most often is a tragic hindrance. Understand the true nature of anger so that you can take back control in order that anger no longer emotionally cripples you.
Psychologists call anger a healthy emotion as it can be used in a way that motivates us into well intended situations, but more often than not, we allow anger to be used as the fuel for the fire that kindles within. While this emotion is normal and common, I do not believe it is healthy because God suggests that it is not all that beneficial. Scripture shows us that anger is a normal human response, how it becomes unhealthy is when we give ourselves over to it and allow ourselves to indulge in sin.
“In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.” Ephesians 4:6
Anger can be best described as being an intense emotion brought on by the feeling of being offended, frustrated, wronged, confused, and denied. All these feelings come about when one makes the conscious choice to stand up against the offending party or event and try to stop the wrong doing.
You can’t think straight when you are angry. When we get angry, we do not realize that already the retaliation that is turning over in our minds and our hearts is leading us into sin. The above scripture is telling us it’s better to not be angry because what happens when we sin in our anger? We hurt someone else.
Ephesians 4:6 explicitly states that we are responsible, okay not in so many words, but reading between the lines, and using biblical license, it’s there. How do I know it’s there? Because we are responsible of how we treat one another, ourselves or God. Anger is never an excuse. Just because we get angry because someone else made us angry is not an excuse that warrants any way ward behavior.
Do you know that Moses sinned in his anger? His anger cost him from entering into the land of Canaan. It wasn’t that Moses was unloved by God, far from it. The reason why Moses wasn’t permitted entry was because in his anger he disobeyed God. What’s the number one rule that we are supposed to adhere by?
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.”Deuteronomy 6:5
Moses knew this and yet in his anger he sinned against God because in anger there is judgment not mercy, no grace, not love, no compassion and no forgiveness. Moses in his anger made the situation about him, and did not put the needs of the Israelites first before his own. He tossed all love and all thoughts of God aside and allowed his wayward emotion to lead him because he was offended for God. God was not offended, God in His direction was merciful. However Moses became offended for himself and for God as Moses allowed himself to enter into judgment. He took it upon himself to stand in the gap for God and stand up for God. God does not need defending, ever. When God becomes angry, it is justified because God knows and sees the areas of our hearts where we will not allow faith to enter in. When we become angry, it is based on a knowledge that is not acting in 100% of knowing the situation.
‘… and the second of these is love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ Mark 12:31
Does anger show love? No. It shows contentious behavior towards the person that you think has offended you. In order to understand where anger comes from, one has to take a look at themselves because like Moses in our anger we make the situation all about us, when in fact sometimes the situation is so far removed from us and has nothing to do with us its not even funny.
Most of us are angry inside, and most often it is the hurting and lost who are angry the most. Anger is a form of control. It is a way the sinful heart uses to keep its voice. Moses sinned because he wanted the people to listen to him, when he was just the stand in, a voice for God. The people didn’t want God talking to them directly. The voice of God terrorized the people and they pleaded with Moses to talk to God on their behalf, to ask God for permission to use Moses as the interpreter instead; God complied.
“So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, ‘Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?’ The Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,’ Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” Numbers 20: 9-13
To show anger is a show of dishonor to the Lord, because anger shows distrust for Him. We can argue these three ways to Sunday but when we show anger; it is a show of how little faith we truly have for God. Because to have faith in God does not mean to trust Him in our hearts only, it means to live out His guidelines as in a show of faith. Our lack of faith shows a lack of knowledge. When we do not know God we cannot trust Him. To know Him is to love Him and to love him is to know Him.
You cannot respect someone you do not trust. It all goes hand in hand and it all goes back to obedience. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Sinning in anger is an offense to God. So how do we stop? The process is long and arduous. One cannot stop their anger overnight; it’s a process and one we often fail at, but if we stick with it; anger becomes a part of who we once were.
To understand anger we need to know what it does. Anger breeds hate. It breeds dissensions, it breeds envy, discord, jealousy, rage, factions, drunkenness, selfish ambition, bitterness and bitterness dries up the bones. Where bitterness is, unforgiveness can be found also, and the seed of bitterness turns a heart for God to cold stone.
We have everything we need contained in scripture to help us overcome the red eyed monster. Anger is not a quality becoming of the one we strive to emulate ourselves after. Anger is a part of what we call the old self. Anger is a part of the sin nature as the sin nature uses it as an act of defiance to the Lord.
When we live in obedience to the Word of God, we soon discover that the things that used to cause us to become angry about, no longer affect us in such a way. We are still drawn to take our stand but how we take that stand are not in shouting matches of protest or belligerent name calling. We walk in the grace that was given us, and we calmly and quietly take the steps to make the changes necessary so that the offense never causes us grief again.
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