Last Sunday, I started on my twice weekly devotionals based on the Bible passage we are reading in our church, ARPC.

This Mid-week Devotional is meant to refocus our distracted vision and rekindle our flagging spirits by keeping God’s Word which we read on Sunday in our hearts.

Bible Passage: Matthew 5:21-22
“21 You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Do you struggle with anger? Do you wrestle with rage?

Maybe the better question to ask is how deeply has anger gripped your heart and ripped apart your relationships?

If God were to search your heart, would he find a tempetuous child, an angsty teenager or an angry man or woman underneath that thin façade of niceness?

It is little wonder that Jesus and his apostles spoke with one voice about the crippling sin of anger.

Firstly, Jesus radically exposed vindictive anger as murder! And, then, he warned us of hell as a consequence for harboring such unloving thoughts against our neighbor.

The Apostle Paul warned us to not let the sun go down on our anger in Ephesians 4:26-28. The meaning is plain. Unresolved anger is the unlocked door that gives the devil a foothold to wreak untold damage to our relationships.

No one in our right mind would leave our front door ajar to welcome danger to harm us.

Yet, we mollycoddle our anger to the detriment of our health. We indulge our vengeful bitterness to the collapse of our marriages. We hoard self-righteous wrath to the destruction of our families and churches.

The Apostle James similarly exhorted his quarrelsome church to “be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19-20). Reason? The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

What right does Jesus and his apostles have to demand such radical “heart change” of us?

Jesus’ kingship is the start of God’s rightful rule over us and the end of our wrongful rule over ourselves.

His radical teaching on each of the six areas of the Law – encapsulated in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) – signals both Jesus fulfilling God’s salvation plan and the “maxing out” of the spirit of God’s law.

In Ronald McDonald’s lingo, Jesus has come to “upsize God’s glory” in our lives when we live according to his Word.

Here are four gospel truths to prayerfully embrace to overcome anger by faith in Jesus and the power of his Spirit.

1. Recognise that anger is the subtlest form of idolatry.

Why? Anger is our idolatrous attempt to control people to get our way in life.

In families – when a parent, child or spouse throws a tantrum – everyone falls into place. We walk on egg shells in the presence of angry men and women.

2. Anger deforms or distorts the image of God in us.

It conforms us to the image of an idol – the angry person. Many may have grown up in families where the beautiful image of God in us has been deformed by an angry father, mother, sibling or child.

3. If it is easier to please God than to please a person, that person has become an idol.

At least with God, we know what attitudes or actions might please him. With a person of idolatrous anger, we cannot do right. In American parlance, “we are damned if you do, we are damned if you don’t”.

A good number of pastors quit – often paralysed in ministry where they are tyrannised by the anger of disgruntled members or back-mouthing leaders who don’t get their way.

It is tragic to live with a slavery to the wrongful fear of men, instead of the freedom that comes from the rightful fear of God.

4. “Repent of Toxic Silences”.

In the end, condoning murderous anger – in our hearts, relationships, marriages, families and churches – not only protects perpetrators and shames the victims but it ultimately dishonors God.

Satan often pounces on our self-righteous anger as the quick fix to undo the smoothening stream of God’s steadfast love flowing over the hard stones of our hearts.

5. How are we going to be radical disciples in this area of anger?

Without God, have we not noticed that we become masters of making an enemy of our siblings, spouses, children and parents?

Without God, we carry this sinful capacity make our friends our enemies.

Have you not noticed we insist and persist on being most unloving to the people God gave us to love!

We DO have this sinful capacity to make our friends our enemies.

Has a slow child become too shameful for you to love?

Has an aging parent become too troublesome for you to love?

Has a contrarian spouse become too difficult for you to love?

Has a needy friend become inconvenient for you to love?

Has our domestic scene become too unimportant for our self-important highflying careers?

Jesus, however, is the master of making enemies his friends. We must firstly see that and believe that of Jesus.

The very nature of God in Christ is the loving of enemies unto salvation. We reflect God our Father when we turn our enemies into friends.

Jesus never considered us too troublesome or burdensome, too different or too difficult to love.

Jesus’ cry on the Cross, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1) is not the cry of a fool but of the perfect wise man who loved and feared God at all costs. And had no murderous anger against us. Amen.

PRAYER:
“Heavenly Father, I confess that I am an angry man or woman. I am sorry I have deformed the image of God in my loved ones. I confess I carry this sinful capacity to make enemies of those you have sent to love and bless me. I am a fool.
By your grace, I believe in Jesus – that He alone can save me. And empower me to a new life of making my enemies my loved ones – only through Christ my Saviour and Lord.”