Anger: A Gift from God!
Most people think anger is demonic
and nothing good/righteous comes from anger; but The Bible teaches contrary to
the above statement.
Anger is actually a gift from God to
us humans. It is a very strong weapon against our adversary the devil. Take a
look at this verse of scripture;
"be ye angry, and sin not: let not
the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil" (Eph. 4:
26-27)
Look at that verse carefully, it
starts with "be ye angry…"; it’s a command; it says: "be ye
angry" and then it adds "…and sin not". Generally,
this verse has been misunderstood and misused among Christians and it has been
understood and used as: "God knows you're human, so go on and get angry
and it's not sin if you confess it every day before going to bed" or for
some people: "a little bit of anger is ok but not in excess". People
of God, that’s not what this verse is saying. This verse is saying you should
get angry with the anger that is not sin. There is an anger that is not sin.
Most people think anger is of the devil; but the devil does not create anything;
he can only pervert what has been created by the creator. God made everyone of
us with the ability to get angry and He is telling us here to get angry with
the holy anger.
We all know Jesus Christ was and is
the Son of God and that He was/is without sin yet the Bible said in Jn. 2: 13 - 17
"And
the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, 14.) And found in the
temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money
sitting: 15.) And when he had made a scourge of small
cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and
poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; 16.)
And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my
Father's house an house of merchandise. 17.) And his
disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me
up."
Brethren, Jesus was angry; He was
angered to the point that He had to make a whip("a scourge of small cords"). He totally lost it that
even the temple guards could not stop Him. His disciples and all others could
only stand and stare. And yet, Jesus was (and is still) without sin.
The second part of Eph. 4: 26 continues "let
not the sun go down upon your wrath" this sentence is not telling
you to confess your anger every night before going to bed; it is actually
telling you to not let your anger subside. Stir yourself up and don’t let your
anger vanish.
That’s hard for many people to accept.
But look up this expression "THE SUN GOING DOWN ON SOMETHING" and
you'll understand that if the sun goes down on something, that thing vanishes.
If the sun goes down on your anger, your ANGER VANISHES. And now, The Word of
God is telling you not to let your anger 'vanish' Stir yourself up and "…neither
give place to the devil".
If you are not operating in anger,
you're not operating in the way God made you to be and you will be giving place
to the devil because that verse(27) tells you that if you let your anger
subside, you are giving place to the devil. Your anger is a strong weapon
against the devil and his vices.
I know a minister who shared a
testimony of when he was so broke he couldn’t afford to eat, his rent was late
and he had a lot of bills to settle. He confessed his riches in Christ "But my God shall supply all your need
according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus" Phil. 4: 19, he
believed God for his supplies and it just seems like nothing was working. Then
a day came that he went into the church to pray; and as he prayed for some
minutes, he became so "ANGRY" and shouted at the devil (because he
realised God supplies the need but the devil, one way or the other, was
stopping him from receiving what God has supplied) and screamed as if he was
talking to a physical being. He said in his testimony; "if the devil was a
physical being, I would have done him some damage". Then, he said, "I
knew that our problems were solved and before I could get home to tell my wife
that our problem was solved, she told me that some guy called in and asked how
he could send them money". Praise The Lord!
Yes! You can start getting mad at the
devil and stop him from working in your life. You can and should hate sickness,
poverty, disease and everything that comes from the devil. As a matter of fact,
you can't love God without hating what comes from the devil. If u really love
your wife, you can kill anybody who tries to attack her. Not because you hate
the other person but because you must protect what/who you love.
"The
fear of the LORD is to hate
evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I
hate."(Prov. 8: 13)
"And
from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence, and the violent take it by force."(Matt. 11: 12)
To [love] The Lord is to hate evil.
Nevertheless, anger may be
demonic/sinful depending on what you are angry at or why you are angry.
Let's take a look at Prov. 13: 10;
"Only
by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom."
Again, there is a Godly contention.
But this verse is talking about the ungodly anger.
Now most people don't believe that
this is in the Bible. But that’s scripture and is very true. It says "ONLY by pride…" it doesn’t say
"for some people…", neither does it say "for people of some race…",
"…colour…", "…tongue…" and so on. It's amazing the
scripture says "ONLY…". That
means; the only reason why you're always angry is because you're prideful. Some
people will say "that's not true" or "that’s true for some
people but not for me". Well, I think you're just trying to justify
yourself. Or maybe you don’t know better.
Most people think pride is arrogance,
and it is pride; but it is only one manifestation of pride. Can you guess the
other manifestation of pride? You'll be shocked to know that 'shyness' or 'timidity' is another
manifestation of pride. We have to define pride the way the Bible defines it:
pride, in its simplest term, is "self-centredness".
Pride is just thinking only about one's self; it doesn’t matter if self
thinks it's better than everybody else or self thinks it's worse than every
other person; it's all self-centredness - Always "me, me, mine, mine, I,
I" always wanting to satisfy itself. Wanting to be pleased by all. And that's
why you're always angry.
How do you feel when you are driving and
the person in front of you just suddenly pulls over or just turns left/right
and forgets to turn on the navigator light? You go mad most of the time right? That's
because you think you are at the centre of the world and the whole world
revolves around you. Beloved, there is only one God, and you are not Him. Everybody
can't be pleasing you! You are not at the centre of the universe! Now how will
you feel if God opens your eyes and you were able to see the heart of that
person and, maybe, he is just coming from the hospital where his wife and kids
are lying due to car accident or he just lost his wife and because of that his
mind wasn’t really in the driving so he forgot to turn on the navigation light
before pulling over/turning to another direction? I believe you will feel
compassion.
My point is, if you know the reason
people do the negative things they do, you wouldn’t always get upset with them.
If you think about others more than you do yourself, you will never be angry
with anybody. We have only one enemy - the devil. Knowing this helps us
understand that people are manipulated by the devil and so our anger and hatred
will directed towards the devil and not to our fellow humans. A lot of times Christians
are angry and develop hatred for the unbelievers for their way of life and
rejection of redemption. You have to understand this, there is nobody who
understands redemption that will reject it. If they don’t believe, it's because
they don’t understand. We are actually supposed to mourn for their sakes
because they are perishing and the bible refers to them as "as them who the god of this
age has blinded".
You really have to stop hating and
getting mad at people. Develop your hatred and anger against the devil and his
vices - that’s the reason God gave us the ability to hate and to be angry. By that,
the devil will always flee from you. Hate sickness and he won't put it on you. Hate
depression, with all your heart, and I can guarantee you'll never have to
battle with it anymore.
Be Blessed!
As a young boy in secondary/high
school, I looked at life, people and basically my family. People(adults) wake
up in the morning and go out to their work places, they come home at evening
and rest preparing for the next day. They go out in the morning and come home
in the evening everyday just to put food on the table, live in a good
environment and be clothed. Students also wake up in the morning, run to
school, come back home at dusk hoping that after schooling, they will have a
decent job/endeavour and comfortably provide for their families. So, I wondered
why life is existing since we all labour to eat and live. We live to keep
working. Here's the funny part - we know everything is vanity. We all know we
will die someday and all our endeavours will JUST PERISH.
