PUT AWAY ANGER AND WALK IN LOVE

The whole world is angry!

Anger is such a dominant force in us and in our world! Anger comes at us. Anger spews from us. The whole world is angry! We are “by nature children of wrath”. Eph. 2:3 Is it always sin? Can it be “righteous indignation”?

Scripture speaks of anger with two closely translated Greek words. “Anger” (THUMOS) can describe an involuntary flare up of irritation which can be put down or not. “Anger” (ORGE) is more “a settled condition of the mind”. God warns us about both. We need to see it in us as God does.

Our anger is misdirected

We get angry with people, and they get angry with us. But God tells us, “Our struggle is NOT against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Eph. 6:12

This verse is an arresting! Not against flesh and blood people! It sure feels like it is! It is flesh and blood people with whom we have arguments, divorce, alienation, stress. It is “the course of this world” (Eph. 2:2) that there is anger between people. No one escapes anger with real people. So what does this black-and-white statement mean, that it is “not against flesh and blood”?

It means that the actual enemy of our peace is not people, but Satan and his world forces of darkness and wickedness who use our evil natures to destroy relationships with anger. To be angry at the people he uses is to be deceived into inviting the diabolical spirit world into our lives to escalate our deception and destruction. Eph. 4:26-27 tells us this:

“Be Angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity (place, room).” The ‘opportunity’ or ‘place’ our anger gives to the devil is the Greek word TOPOS (as in topography). It means a jurisdictional area, a place which a person or thing occupies. Anger gives Satan a place in you, a foothold. The foothold grows with a malignant energy. Not only is the love that should have developed in past and present relationships destroyed, but potential future relationships are already doomed to failure because of an angry spirit that has taken root in our spirit.

This is the insidious secret about anger. A little indulgence of it leads to more, as Satan from his “opportunity” keeps deceiving and enslaving us to an ever growing angry spirit. God’s first and only command to trust his Son, and to love as He commanded us, (I John 3:23) becomes irrelevant while anger is indulged. Relationship with Jesus Christ is damaged as well as with people. Only Satan is winning here!

Love? Or anger? You can’t have both!

Love cancels anger; anger cancels love. Not the other person’s love or anger. Ours. Love is God’s answer to anger, and ravaged relationships. His prescription is “put away anger” and “walk in love”. Love is a self-denying obedient choice, one that every believer in Christ is commanded to make if Jesus Christ is to be their Lord and Savior. Christ’s people let go of anger so that they can grasp love. Listen to His words:

“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath (THUMOS) and anger (ORGE) and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Eph. 4:29-32-5:2

What about righteous indignation?

But is there a cause so worthy, an injustice so great, a right so wronged, that we can justify our “righteous” anger ? Didn’t Jesus get angry, and isn’t God angry with sin? The scriptural answer is, No! God’s anger is not the human emotion we know because neither God’s love nor His anger depend on the offender, but on His holy character. God never reacts, is never surprised. He has nothing to defend, nothing to prove. He has a settled final wrath against man’s sin. His anger is steady, consistent, justified, holy and righteous. He is angry “every day”. His indignation comes out of pure love, mercy, and justice. Thus He can be righteously angry, and loving. He purely and consistently hates sin, its‘ source, its deeds. We don‘t!

Mark 3:5 records the only time in the New Testament when it is said that Jesus got angry. (It does not say He was angry when He cleansed the temple.) His anger was mixed with grief at the Pharisees compassionless legalism toward the man He healed on the Sabbath. When our anger is truly mixed with grief for our granite-hard hearts, perhaps then our anger will vaguely approach “righteous”. In the meantime, we are wise to view all anger as a deadly toxin, and our fallen natures vulnerable to deception.

Anger is taking revenge and judging

When we get angry, we take God’s position as judge. He is jealous of that position. He warns us not to take judgment to ourselves or He will righteously judge us! If you are angry at someone for offenses toward you, you are putting yourself above them, judging them. You can be absolutely sure, by the testimony of God, that you yourself are guilty of the very same sin, and that God’s’ righteous judgment falls on you for it. He doesn’t strike you dead because He is kindly giving you room to repent so as to not store up guilt that He will have to righteously deal with later. Hear His words::

“Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?

Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS….” Rom. 2:1-6

When you judge someone, judgment comes flying back at you from God (and your victim!) and finds you guilty! Taking time before the Lord to examine our judgments of, and anger toward. other people to discern our own sins would give us a better perspective, salvage relationships, and disarm our actual enemy, Satan.

Anger’s ugly faces

Angry people angrily deny that they are angry! There is a 100% chance that everyone of us are angry about something/someone somewhere, sometime. The deception is that the people with whom we are angry appear to be responsible for our anger, not ourselves. Therefore we rationalize that we are helpless in, and without responsibility for, those God given relationships and their obligations.

But an angry spirit is apparent to everyone else! We instinctively avoid angry people with hurt feelings and frustration, and an “axe to grind“ even if it is not with us that they are angry and making judgments. (At the moment!) Living with hostile silence (which is taking vengeance, Rom. 12:16-21), cynicism, and negativity is to live with “the spiritual forces of wickedness” (Eph. 6:12).

There was occasion for the prodigal son’s family to celebrate, but his brother’s anger prohibited his spontaneous participation. He couldn’t! He didn’t have the freedom to rejoice because it seemed to him he’d been slighted (the same sin as his brother‘s--- thinking only of himself). His Father’s appeal to see a higher cause than himself could not reach him. Instead, “he became angry, and was not willing to go in.” His lack of freedom appeared to him to be his father’s and his brother’s fault, so he answered with angry blame. “Look! For so many years I have been serving you, and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given ME a kid, that I might be merry with my friends, but this son of yours….” (Luke 15:25-32) And so he smoldered outside isolated by his anger, blaming, and judging. Did he think he was an angry person? No, he just thought he deserved better and that his brother didn’t deserve grace. And so he himself had none. Inside, where grace and forgiveness were, they were dancing!

Anger drains emotional energy that we need for grace in relationships. Drained, the angry person has “reasons” for being unloving, unaffectionate, solitary, and self-protective. He illustrates James 1:20, that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God", which is love at self’s expense.

Can I be honest with God that I am angry with Him?

“ He knows anyway!“ We should know instinctively with fear how wrong this thinking is! John Piper says, “…when we get angry at a person, we are displeased with a choice they made and an act they performed. Anger at a person always implies strong disapproval. If you are angry at me, you think I have done something I should not have done. This is why being angry at God is never right. It is wrong - always wrong - to disapprove of God for what he does and permits. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (Genesis 18:25). It is arrogant for finite, sinful creatures to disapprove of God for what he does and permits. We may weep over the pain. We may be angry at sin and Satan. But God does only what is right. "Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments" (Revelation 16:7).

“Most of our bitterness and anger towards others is rooted in an inability to be profoundly amazed at Christ’s love for us in our sin.”

Anger is always, in every circumstance, to be directed at the real enemy of our souls; while love is always, in every circumstance, to be directed to those “flesh and blood” people who offend us. God allows no place in the Christian’s heart for anger and judgment, the evil fruit of the Deceiver. That space is redeemed to bear the fruit of Christ’s Spirit in us, which is a love that fills our hearts with joy, peace, patience, kindness, tolerance, and self control. Our part is to “Put away anger…and walk in love

Rae Edlin