Pray KNCSB

Paraphrasing parts of Colossians 3:1-17

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath…put on the new self…after the image of God…compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience (bearing with and forgiving one another… put on love… let Christ’s peace rule in your heart… Be thankful… let the word abide in you and abide in the Word, honoring King Jesus with your life.

Anger has no plans of leaving us alone without putting up a fuss. Without a fight we will never put to death anger or wrath. What then is our strategy for defeating anger in our lives?

We must not settle for a strategy based on lies.

The blame game lie: “He made me angry”. It’s true that people hurt us to the point of anger. However, anger does not come into us from the outside, it comes from inside of us. So we can choose our reactions to hurtful things. In responding to angering events we must be Christ like.

The personality lie: “I’m just hot tempered; deal with it.” It’s true that people are more easily angered than others. However, this reality doesn’t excuse angry and hurtful outbursts toward others, friend or fiend. We remember the words of our Master who showed us another way: “bless those who hurt you…”

The helpless lie. “I can’t help it, my feelings take over.” This strategy, like its blame and personality siblings, is also flawed. We can actually do all things in the strength of Christ, including anger busting things. Our lives are hidden in Christ and we have died to the things of this world. We are to put off these things that beset us. We are more than conquerors. We are to be self-controlled.

Last, there is the culture lie. Our culture today encourages the expression of anger. Punch something, yell at your dog, and tell her how you feel, or take it out on a helpless triple cheeseburger with fries. And supersize it, please! Culture in this case must submit to faith. Jesus’ way trumps culture when there is a conflict between culture and biblical truth and ways of relationship. Put away anger. Pure and simple, but never easy!

All these crutches are excuses or lies we tell ourselves to justify behaviors that allow the flesh to gain mastery over us.

Put away anger and wrath, Paul taught in imitation of our Master Teacher. There is a principle here that must guide us: If we’re commanded undress anger from our person, it’s because we’re Spirit-empowered to achieve the command. This is true not only of anger but all the sins that beset us.

I would like here to introduce a concept that might be helpful in doing the hard work of getting rid of anger. There are certain attitudes and behaviors in the Christian life that are just hard to accomplish by trying, even when we try harder in spite of repeated failure. As much as I want to love my enemies, be humble, or stop being angry when hurt, I discover I am not able to love, be humble, or stop being angry. Trying harder would hardly do. Perhaps another approach may get me closer to godliness and self-control. Perhaps training will do what trying cannot do. Let me explain more.

The putting on of the new self is a process (the slow cure) that the Spirit undertakes (It’s called sanctification, the process of making us holy people) in my life to dress me up with the same mind that was in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:1-11)”. Paul encourages me in Colossians 3 to “Put on the new self … after the image of God…  compassion, kindness, humility”, etc…  This process allows kindness, compassion, humility, etc… the antidotes of anger to become permanent residents in me. Through this process, I train to become the kind of person, who automatically responds to anger causing situations with the gentleness and meekness of Christ in me.

This process has a goal: to become conformed to the image of Christ. My goal is not to become more of who I am. God forbid. It is my very self that is in desperate need of becoming new. God transfers his divine nature into me (2 Peter 1:4) to make me like Christ.

Along with the goal the process has three components. First the Spirit is the agent of working on me. No solo work here. Teamwork is a required. The second component is life. The Spirit works through life’s troubles, joys, hurts, and troughs to do his perfecting work in me. Through life events, He turns me into an anger-defeating disciple. The third component is the means of grace. The means of grace enable me to do what I am not able to do in my own strength is called the habits of love. These habits work directly in me to enable me to prevent angry reactions in me

Especially pertinent to overcoming anger automatically, I name solitude and silence. They work in such a way to drive me to surrender whatever anger-responding weapon in my hand or to turn it into a fruit-bearing tool. I’m not sure how this works exactly. It’s a deep work of the Holy Spirit within. I only know, that I am what I am, because of these habits. Being alone with God learning to be silent before him, allowing his presence to wash away my pride, my desire to control others, my tendency for revenge, and my self-justifying actions.

I have learned that in walking with the Master that every life changing action in my life demands the work of God in me and requires my efforts. I am willing to participate in this work of salvation (Philippians 2:12-13). The prize: A closer likeness to Christ that refuses to let anger eat away at my apprenticeship to Jesus.

The deadly sin of Wrath or anger.

Listen to this Jeremiad: This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled to the brim with my anger, and make all nations to whom I send you drink from it” (Jeremiah 25:15). The “cup of the wine of the wrath of God”, as the Hebrew literally says, is the cup of the righteous anger or judgment of God. God was angry with his people and with the nations in their disobedience. There is a point of no return when the axe of judgment falls upon debauchery. And God’s anger is the driving force.

In a final way, Jesus downed this judgment cup with one crucifying gulp when our judgment was nailed to his cross. But as long as the cosmos remains rebellious against God the residue of the anger of God remains as an instrument of judgment and reconciliation.

So much for God’s anger; what about ours? Since we are made in the image of God, is not anger or wrath part of the human gene pool? So we deduce then that there must be a right anger and a wrong anger since it is inconceivable to call God’s anger wrong.

Right anger serves and protects something good. The world God created is good, and we, the apex of creation, are very good even if we are desperately flawed. Anything that causes this goodness to wane or be destroyed incurs the judging wrath of God. In turn, we who are imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1-2) also make right and wrong anger choices. Righteous anger is God’s way of protecting the good, of purifying the world and our hearts. The wrong or sinful anger promotes the dark side of rebellion.

What is right anger? One time someone attempted to harm one of my children. I became a fiery and irritable 5-foot ball of anger. This kind of anger is right, fair and just. Justice and putting things to rights demands it. When the poor suffer and are taken advantage of, God is angry and we should be too. Not at God, not at ourselves. At a world system we are determined to transform in our anger. When a woman is abused in any way, our anger leads us to sympathize with her. Is justice even possible without right anger? Probably not! Until the kingdom of God comes in a final way and the will of God is done anger is the right response to injustice of any kind. Angry feelings, stemming from these situations, are not sinful. They fit well with Paul’s repetition of an Old Testament teaching to be angry but without committing sin or breaking a commandment of God. Letting the sun go down on this anger does not seem right.

The right kind of wrath is part of the life of the heroes of Scripture. Abraham beats the tar out of Lot’s rival warlords. I assure you he did not enter the war in love. Moses, by God’s voice, encouraged an eye for an eye, and made mincemeat of Egypt. And what to say of all the prophets of Israel, who railed against injustice, abuse of God’s moral law, and life in the fast lane of sin? Just as God’s wrath is positive and active so must our anger be.

Our problem is with the wrong anger, the Cain kind of anger that acts to destroy brother and neighbor (raising Cain we say). Rather than love, hatred digs its ugly claws into the seat of anger. The passage in Genesis 4 tells us that Cain branded his moral compass with the seal of internal anger. He then nursed the internal scar until it broke through his skin in the form of a hateful killing club.

But physical violence is not the only anger we commit. Pride, greed, and envy often lead to backbiting, slighting, or demeaning language against our neighbor. “How many reputations have you killed, O unrestrained anger?”

Then again, angry feelings are not always served piping hot or sported at the tip of the tongue or dangled on the sleeve. Often vengeance is calculated in the frigid temperatures of anger. Stafford (Disordered Loves, 82) quotes this Spanish Proverb: Vengeance is a dish best eaten cold. Vengeful anger injures with a deliberate word (a disposition of character that calls a neighbor a fool, Jesus said), withholding goodness, or ongoing unforgiveness.

And this: Displaced anger. I had to stop the other day when I realized I was beginning to react angrily to a situation. I quizzed my soul: Why are you angry within me? My soul admitted: I am angry at the injustice of a previous situation and because you haven’t let go of it, you’re wearing your anger on your sleeve in this other situation.” Touché! I took a mental shower and returned to my usual self.

Put away your wrong anger? But where? On the cross where Jesus traded hate for love. Those who walk with the master train their souls to respond with love when hate is more natural, when vengeance is pleasurable, and when keeping that angry piece of our minds we’re so willing to part with, right where it belongs: On the lips of prayer.