Sunday, September 8, 2024
Anger is an emotional response. The paths that our anger takes as we express it are our responsibility. Unfortunately, many of these paths are learned and ingrained behaviors (from life experiences in angry and hostile contexts) and socially reinforced behaviors (getting what we want by unleashing our anger). Uncontrolled internal anger morphs a person into a lit fuse ready to bring all sorts of destructive and sinful problems upon the people toward whom the angry person feels rage. The destructive and sinful problems also crash back into the angry person's life. This is why it is so important for us to see the key point in the very center of our passage and the heart of the anger problem: "a hot-tempered person."
While we can learn to better respond to others when angry, that doesn't ultimately deal with our core problem — the hot-tempered person in our heart. We can't get rid of the cobwebs in our lives until we get rid of the spider creating those cobwebs: We aren't going to be able to get a suitable handle on our angry behaviors until we deal with the "hot-tempered person" living in our hearts! Our internal rage is the fuel keeping the"hot-tempered person" in our hearts on fire. We must address the source of the problem: this spider in the dark parts of our hearts! All of us need to begin a prayerful dialogue with the Lord Jesus and ask Him to use the Holy Spirit to help us answer some key questions:
This is not a comprehensive list, but an experienced and properly trained pastoral counselor or therapist can help significantly address these issues and others. What Jesus and the Scriptures teach us can help us with repentance, forgiveness, insecurity, confession, and abuse issues that we must address. [1] However, we must not dodge the underlying "hot-tempered person" fueling our internal rage. Thankfully, we have great Christian resources, the support of Christian friends, and the work of the Holy Spirit to help us work on our anger problems in three dimensions: [2]
We do not have to live all our lives feeling like a lit fuse ready to explode on someone else in anger. Let's hear the call to not only sweep the cobwebs out of the dark, angry parts of our lives but also deal with the spider that keeps weaving the cobwebs of destruction in our relationships!
Almighty God, I need Jesus' help as the Great Physician of my soul. I need strength to adjust my responses to others when I am angry. In addition, dear Father, I need the Holy Spirit's transformation [A] to work in my heart and help me deal with the "hot-tempered person" inside of me. Forgive me for the past times when I rationalized my anger. I want to be Your child of salt and light, bringing good, redemptive flavor to each conversation and the light of grace into difficult situations and with challenging people. [B] O Holy Spirit, please produce Your godly fruit in me as You transform me to be more like Jesus. [C] Amen.
Together in Christ is a daily devotional that focuses on what Scripture teaches about godly living in relationships.
'Together in Christ' is written by Phil Ware.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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