It is not a sin to become angry. Jesus himself was angry
when he went to the temple and found moneychangers in the temple courts making
money by selling sacrifices to undiscerning worshippers. It even says in John
2:15 that Jesus made a whip and chased out the moneychangers from the temple
grounds, overturning benches and tables, and chasing out cattle, birds, and the
unscrupulous people who were making money in God’s house.
Anger can serve as a catalyst in our lives, indicating that
there may be deeper underlying issues that require attention. Typically, anger
is a sign of unresolved personal matters that are yearning to be acknowledged
and comprehended. Many of these unresolved problems stem from our childhood and
continue to manifest in our adult life.
One common way people express anger is through sarcasm.
While it may seem harmless, sarcasm involves using words or phrases to convey
negative opinions about others. Some individuals are very skilled at using
sarcasm, and even comedians have built careers around using it to share funny
stories about their families and relationships. However, the underlying anger
is often not addressed.
The passage above emphasizes the importance of not holding
onto anger. It suggests that as bearers of the Spirit of Christ, we should keep
ourselves free from unresolved anger, when we hold on to anger it can cloud the
headspace where the Spirit of God desires to reside within us. We are all loved
by God and are created as His imagers. Holding onto anger or hurt due to
someone else's actions only serves to fill our minds with negativity, and pain taking
away from the presence of the Spirit of Christ within us. Forgiveness is
essential, not for the sake of the person who wronged us, but for our own
well-being. It allows us to see others as unique individuals, just as God sees
them, and helps us fulfill our purpose as children of God.
The Devil (or Satan) takes such delight when we hold on to
anger; it is one of the traits of his character to turn it around on us, to lie
and deceive us into believing that ‘we deserve to be angry at the way we were
treated’ rather than approaching the offense as not being about us at all.
Other people are working out their lives and salvation daily, and it sometimes
gets messy. Things get said that are hurtful; actions taken against us by a
brother or sister in Christ can have ramifications that set us back, but our
response to those moments of hurt determines the metal we are made of.
Can we forgive and give grace to those who hurt us, just as Jesus has forgiven us by the ways we have hurt Him? The key lies in the healthy emotional choices we make. These choices, guided by wisdom, can help us to prevent the same hurtful situations from arising again. We can choose to act differently beforehand or set healthy boundaries in our communication. These boundaries protect us from potential misunderstanding or abuse. By making these healthy emotional choices, we reflect the growth and maturity that is characteristic of the Spirit of Christ within us. This realization can encourage and motivate us in our personal growth and spiritual journey as well as encourage others.
I am constantly brought back to the story of Paul; he
started as a murderer of Christians, but once he met Jesus, everything about
his life changed. He met the man who loved and died for all of humanity;
it profoundly affected the trajectory of his life afterward. Paul decided to
commit his life to serving the Son of God with everything that was within him.
God honored Paul by giving him profound revelations in the scriptures, which
were unparalleled; he also committed to planting churches in the gentile
nations through his missionary journeys (the known world in Paul’s day) to
expand the reach of Jesus Christ.
Paul could have remained angry at the Christians as a
Pharisee if Jesus had not met him on his way to Damascus that fateful day. I am
so thankful to the Lord for Paul, who was willing to see something greater than
his own anger. The Lord Jesus Christ, who was able to appear to him on the road
to Damascus and express His great mercy, transformed Paul into a powerhouse for
God’s mercy and grace for others.
It is where the Lord meets us at our weakest point when we
are stuck in anger and shame, that He, in His mercy, comes to us and reveals
that He is our strength and grace. It is when we can be that for others who
have offended us that we can be free ourselves. It is for freedom that Christ
has set us free. As the verse above suggests, we are greeted with a new day of
His mercy and faithfulness when we surrender our anger every day.
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies
never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV
Stephen Barnett
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