Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Anger”
Our Bible verse for today: “Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, and don’t give the Devil an opportunity.” Ephesians 4:26-27 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “You can make choices about how to handle your anger.”
Ephesians 4:26-27 is a revealing and instructive passage about anger. First of all, do you find it a little surprising that Paul tells us to go ahead and be angry? I believe there are two reasons for that. For one thing, as has already been discussed in a previous devotional message on this subject, sometimes anger is appropriate. There are things we should get angry about. It’s called “righteous” anger. But second, as has also already been mentioned, anger is a normal and common human emotion and sometimes it is going to flare up before we even realize its coming. Suddenly its just there.
Paul acknowledges here the reality of anger, but then he tells us that we have a choice about what we do with it. There are ways to deal with anger that are good and correct, as opposed to bad and sinful, “Be angry and do not sin.”
In their book, “The Anger Management Workbook”, Doctors Les Carter and Frank Minirth write: “Once you have learned to identify anger and understand its meaning, you can then learn to distinguish right and wrong ways of managing it. Although you may not always like the presence of your anger, you can make choices about how you handle it.”
Like anything else in life, learning to make good choices about how we handle our anger is a matter of learning and growing. First we take the time and make the effort to understand anger and its sources; then we train ourselves to respond to anger appropriately rather than in inappropriate ways.
If we agree that the emotion of anger is common and frequently present, and if we also agree that we can make choices about what we do with it once it arises, then we also have to agree that there is at least a brief moment when a choice can be made. It may be a fleeting moment, but there is at least a small window of opportunity for us. If there wasn’t, then Paul’s caution in Ephesians 4:26 would be meaningless.
It’s that brief window of opportunity that we want to focus in on. Tomorrow I will offer a suggestion about how that can be done.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 