CHRISTLIKE ANGER

 CHRISTLIKE ANGER

John [CEV] 2:13-17 Not long before the Jewish festival of Passover, Jesus went to Jerusalem. There he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves in the temple. He also saw moneychangers sitting at their tables. So he took some rope and made a whip. Then he chased everyone out of the temple, together with their sheep and cattle. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins. Jesus said to the people who had been selling doves, "Get those doves out of here! Don't make my Father's house a marketplace." The disciples then remembered that the Scriptures say, "My love for your house burns in me like a fire." [Ps.69:9-17]

  Inmates sometimes ask for topical studies. I oblige and personally benefit. Some, suffering results of anger request my study file on anger, a commonality among scofflaws. I put the packet together, so it’s no surprise that the next day I awoke thinking further about anger.

  Sinful anger may show in many variations: distrust, sensitivities, embarrassment, justification, blame-shifting, indignation, petulance, argumentiveness, stridency, irritability, antagonism, exasperation, stubbornness, perturbance, assertiveness, aggressiveness, snarkiness, nuclear reactions, vengefulness. It can even be in a few unsuspecting ways: calmness (Cool Handed Luke represents this), passiveness, pacifism, shyness, exceptional privacy, irresponsibility, undependability, carelessness, dependability and exemplary performance, morality.

  By invitation we are to follow and emulate godliness according to The Word (Jn.1:1) and guidance from His Holy Spirit within (Jn.16:13-14).

  The Word got angry. (Jn.2:13-17)

  The Word says that we are to be angry without sinning: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:” (Eph.4:26)

  But isn’t our anger always contradictory, in opposition to godly love?

  Is there a uncomplicated deciding measure? There is.

  When anger is all-about-me, it is sinfully ungodly anti-Word (James 4). To assist in comprehension, please understand that it is under two seemingly different, but equivalent subheadings: antic defense as described in the first list in paragraph 2, and composed protectionism as portrayed in the second list in paragraph 2.

  Defense and protection of what? Our vanity/pride, self-esteem; the natural “old self” unregenerate life-view. (Rom.6:6; 12:1-3; Eph.4:22-27; Col.3:8-10) Put another way, the definitive distinction is between righteous anger and self-righteous indignation.

  Let us hear and heed Paul’s address to the saints at Ephesus. (Eph.1:1)

  “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”  (ESV Eph.4:17-27)

  Thought question: For God’s child, can anger be patent lying about their redemption in Lord Jesus Christ?  EBB4

Confession: Something I get angry about is Christians involving in secular non-Biblical anger management literature and/or programs, and doing so without a serious thought to present and eternal expense. (Christian’s live in eternity now, not later.) Will such help? Yes, they will, but anything not done God’s Way is apart from Him; moral accomplishment and bearing not based in His Word, and gives honor and glory to other than Him. (1Cor.6:19-20; 2Cor.5:10; 2Tim.2:15) Anger is never a primary emotion. Ungodly anger is always a secondary emotion boiling above the heat of pride. We Christians are to study, realize, and apply anger’s remedy as found in God’s Word.  EBB4