Guide Your Mind-Guard Your Heart-Grace Your Tongue预览

Anger is an emotion that we are allowed to engage in because, in itself, it is not sin. God is completely without sin, and yet the Bible tells us that God responds in anger to certain situations or to certain choices people make. However, He exhibits His anger much differently than we do as human beings, even though we were made in His very image. God’s anger is always productive, while our anger, influenced by the fallen human nature, is often destructive.

Christians have unfortunately allowed anger to become an “angry” word. We mistakenly believe that when God becomes angry, He roars and throws things and screams in frustration against the people whom He has created. This is not an accurate picture of how God deals with His displeasure toward us. When God is angry, He never gives one of His beloved children the silent treatment or the cold shoulder. He is not sitting on heaven’s throne wondering how He can make us suffer. Rather, God prostrates Himself over the threshold of heaven and blows His wind in our direction. He blows life onto us! God knows that what we need in that moment of displeasure is more of Him! 

When you are displeased with someone or have been betrayed by someone, perhaps what you should consider doing is what God does. You might just need to breathe Jesus onto their lives! You might also consider “prostrating” yourself in the presence of the one who has caused your anger, because that is what God the Father has done on your behalf. 

You must willfully choose every day not to be who you were before Christ but to be the person whom He has created you to be. When we process anger in a human way by embracing it and express­ing it through our souls and not our spirits, we make room for the devil in our lives. However, when you respond to your anger the way God responds, with humility and with life-giving breath, it is then that the Father will use you to further His kingdom. So, go to the person who has made you angry, and just give them Jesus!

Personal Application: Make a decision to give your anger scriptural boundaries, ensuring that it is short-lived. Renew this decision every time you feel the emotion of anger.