James 1:19-20 – Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Anger is a great indicator and can teach us who and what we love and care about. If we see that person or thing being violated or threatened, the anger comes to defend who or what we love. When you get angry, it’s referring to something you care very greatly about.
If you love your money, and someone takes it and you get angry, it reveals you love your money. If you love your child and you think someone is a danger to them, you get angry because you want to protect and defend your child. If you love comfort, then anyone or anything that disrupts your evening routine causes you to get angry.
Anger is an indicator of something that matters a great deal to us. Anger is both what we feel and what we do. Anger within us comes out in both word and deed.
It may seem that when anger is referenced in the Bible, it’s often a bad thing. However, anger is not always bad. It’s not that there’s good emotions and bad emotions; there are emotions in the Spirit and emotions in the flesh. If emotions are in the Spirit, it’s a healthy, godly way to show that emotion; if it’s in the flesh, it’s an unholy, unhealthy way to show that emotion.
God Himself gets angry and, if you don’t get angry at things that are evil or unjust, there’s something wrong. The trials we go through are not the sin; the way we react to those trials are where we have the opportunity to sin. We just must show our anger in a way that’s Spirit-filled towards things that God, too, would be angry about.
Find a place in the Bible where it talks about God’s righteous anger and compare that with James 1 where he talks about being slow to anger.
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