Dealing with Anger

Dealing with Anger

“ Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”   —Ephesians 4:26

I’m a pouter. Yes, as a child, I learned to suffer silently. I vividly remember as an eleven or twelve year old getting scolded by my dad. That was nearly a half a century ago and times were different. My dad might erupt in a rage at some shortcoming on my part and slap me up across the back of the head or grab my shirt collar and throw me towards one corner of the room to get my attention. Incidentally, it was always the opposite corner from where he was ordering me to go so I had to go past him for another up-slap or speedy encouragement with his foot. I learned that sighing or eye rolling was not an appropriate way of expressing my frustration and protest.

Today, I can sympathize more with my dad. He was trying to keep my blended family together and struggling to keep our financial heads above the bills. As a pre-teen trying to keep up with adult chores on our gentleman’s farm, I felt wrongly accused. It seemed to me that anytime anything was broken or went wrong, I was blamed. To this day, I still feel I was innocent, but then again, I was twelve.

Early in my married life, the first 25 or 30 years, I thought I was sparing my wife grief by not sharing my frustrations. In reality, Darlene would simply assume my quietness and pouting meant she was not measuring up or had done something to offend me. I didn’t realize speaking the truth in love would have spared much grief and been healthier for our marriage.

My experiences from childhood were reinforced by the Christian notion that anger is bad. After my conversion, I came to believe any expression of negative emotions like anger, sadness, fear, and so on were non-Christian. Now, I am learning that God gave the negative emotion of anger for our benefit. True, in our fallen world, we misuse this emotion and abuse others in the process. God gave us anger as an emotional signal that something needs to be changed. It was intended to be a positive motivator to be used in giving feedback about how life can be lived better.

Scripture teaches us to “Be angry, and yet do not sin.” We keep from sinning by addressing anger before the sun goes down. A few verses later, Ephesians tells us, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (4:31). Notice the company anger keeps in verse 31. Bitterness, wrath, slander and malice are the sins that result from allowing frustrations and disappointments to fester. If you are angry, do something with it before it does something in you or causes you to do something to others.

There are generally three ways we deal with anger: repressing it, expressing it, or releasing it. Repressing anger, stuffing it down into your personality and believing if ignored, it will go away, never works. Expressing and releasing anger are effective if done at the right time and in the appropriate manner. If we express anger within a relationship with truth and love as our motivation, good results may occur. When no good can come by expression and there is no opportunity for reconciliation, we may choose to release our anger. It actually hurts us more than the other person by keeping it.

Ephesians 4 goes on to talk about preventing anger from becoming a deep-seated hatred by applying kindness and forgiveness (32). We can only forgive and offer kindness in the face of frustration and pain as we have received the forgiveness and grace of God in Jesus Christ. Is there someone you need to forgive? Is there an injustice you need to address? By God’s grace, may you find release and appropriate expression of your anger today.

Jesus Came for Sinners

“It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”    —Mark 2:17

The other day, my daughter asked me to pick up a prescription at the hospital where she works. She gave me detailed instructions how to find the hospital’s pharmacy. I found a solid door with a locking handle, no windows, and a small sign that read, “Employees Only.”

As I waited to get the prescription, I was struck by the irony a hospital pharmacy for employees only. It seemed funny or odd or maybe sad. I know this hospital gives out thousands of prescriptions to in-patients every day, but I thought, “Don’t hospitals exist to heal the sick?” This particular pharmacy was an added convenience, a perk for employees.

The Church often functions like a hospital for healthy folks. The Church offers many great benefits to those of us on the inside. Sometimes only those who have been part of the church for many years know all the secret doors to open in order to find help. Those on the inside have all the connections to resources and assistance. A majority of the money in the western church goes to benefit those already righteous, already believers, already church members. Jesus said He came to call sinners. Jesus’ call and the Church’s mission are for those on the outside. Just as a hospital exists primarily not to benefit the doctors, nurses, and staff but the sick on the outside in need of healing; so the Church’s primary calling is to seek to save that which was lost. John Wesley told the early circuit-riding preachers, “You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work.”

The Church exists for those not yet a part of it. This makes for an interesting problem. Those who give nothing to the church budget, those having no vote or voice in the mission and vision of the church, and those most likely to criticize Christians are the exact persons whom Jesus calls us to focus on in ministry. We exist to reach outside ourselves. Of course, there should be great benefits to those inside. We should be responsible for each other just as a family cares for one of its members. Jesus told us to love one another, but Jesus also said to leave the 99 in the flock and to go find the one that was lost.

How much of your energy, money, and prayers go out to those who are lost. If we would do a time study, we would probably find most of our ministry time goes toward ourselves or those most like us within our church family. If we would do a simple analysis on our offerings and charitable gifts, we might be saddened by the fact we give in the exact opposite direction to the teachings of Jesus, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.” The next time you pray, compare the number of people you lift to God who are connected to a church with the number who have no church family.

We may not all be able to be Superman, Michael Jordan, or Sidney Crosby, but we can all serve like a Mother Teresa, encourage like a Barnabas, and pray with the faith of Peter, James, and John. The first command concerning the lost world was given by Jesus in Matthew 9, “Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest’” (37-38).

Many churches, Christians, and pastors are obsessed about the number of worshippers who attend their services. Jesus seemed to be more concerned about the numbers who are not attending. Jesus came to seek the lost and commanded us to go and make disciples. Which part of that command do we have trouble understanding, the “G” or the “O?”

Risen With Christ

“And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.”  —1 Corinthians 15:14

I just read the most incredible description of a modern day resurrection. The Jesus’ Film folks were showing the Jesus’ Film in a very antagonistic region of the world. As they showed the film in an open field, another group was meeting behind closed doors planning to attack and stop it. They attacked the small group viewing the movie with stones. As everyone ran off and hid in the bush, the group pelted the film team’s car with rocks for an hour and a half and set fire to the film equipment. After the attackers left the area, the Christians started their car and fled back to their home base.

A week later, the head of the film team was surprised to hear that the opposition leader had become a follower of Jesus. When the attacker went to bed that night, he had a vivid vision of Jesus hanging on the cross, suffering. In his dream, Jesus turned to him, said his name, and asked, “Why are you persecuting me?” As a spiritual leader, the revelation was too much for him to grasp. Stunned and still in his dream, he said, “Jesus, if you are really God, heal my chronic ailment.” When he awoke the next morning, he was completely healed!

Jesus is alive and speaks to people today by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, dreams, visions, other Christians, the Church, and our circumstances. The resurrection of Christ is the foundation of the Christian faith. Paul clearly stated this truth, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.” Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is one of the most documented and established facts of history. Lives have been transformed, kingdoms conquered, and the entire course of human history transformed forever.

 

The fact and miracle of the resurrection actually happened and has been reenacted hundreds and thousands of times in the life of the Church. The fearful, wanderer is raised to live a life of peace and purpose. God transforms the violent brawler and hater into a gentle-hearted, lover of people through an encounter with the risen Christ. God’s grace changes the addict into a clean and holy person who gives rather than steals. The fowl-mouthed blasphemer becomes a preacher of the Good News of Jesus. A murderer and persecutor of the church becomes a missionary to a lost world. Every one of these instances is a resurrection. The dead in sin has become alive in Christ.

 

The resurrection of Jesus is not just an event in history that we celebrate on Easter Sunday, but a living experience of the Christian’s life. Josh McDowell describes this reality in his authority prayer, “I have been co-resurrected, co-ascended and co-seated with Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father” (Handbook of Today's Religions). This authority for believers is based on Ephesians 2:5-6, “When we were dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ … and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Friend, if you are a Christian believer, Easter Sunday should be one of the highest moments of celebration. Yes, we look back to the historical fact of what Jesus did then. It’s true. It’s documented. It’s miraculous. Let us also live into the reality of who we are in Jesus Christ and the power of God at work in each of us, today. You, too, are co-resurrected with Christ. You are co-ascended with Christ, and you are co-seated in heavenly places with Christ. Let us rise up with Christ and live our Christian lives with authority and confidence.