[New Life New Way] Angerናሙና

  

Do Not Sin

Sometimes it might look like God wants to protect us in our anger. The Bible tells us to be angry but do not sin. It means that we should put aside the anger coming from our old, selfish self, and put on the anger that comes from God’s righteousness, from His holiness, against sin and its consequences. 

Anger, like sin, is harmful to our health. It has been scientifically proven that excessive anger has many mental and physical consequences that are harmful to us—like high blood pressure, heart problems, problems concentrating, constant headaches, depression, and more. Anger is also harmful to our relationships. If we are angry spouses, we are going to ruin our marriages. If we are angry parents, friends, sons, or daughters, we are going to end up ruining every single relationship we have, because people do not like to be around someone who is constantly angry. It is not healthy for them either. Anger can also be harmful to our reputation. As we may see, it has the same consequences as sin. Because unrighteous anger, unconfessed anger, uncontrolled anger, is a sin.

We previously read what the Bible says in Ephesians 4:26: “Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” It means that when we do get angry, we should not carry our anger into tomorrow. We need to confess it daily. We should give up our anger daily. Surrender it to God and let Him take it away from us. Anger does not only make us sin against God, but it also makes fools out of us. The Bible says: “A fool is quick-tempered, but a wise person stays calm when insulted” (Proverbs 12:16 NLT). 

Have you ever been so angry that you needed to count to ten before saying something, because you knew that if you didn’t, you were going to make the situation worse? That is a great exercise. Often, we will need to count to ten, or ten thousand, before reacting. It will lead us to a much better result in a situation where we might otherwise sin. We live in an angry world and an angry culture. People are always angry about something, and that is the consequence of sin.

Thought Of The Day: Next time we feel the need to get angry, let’s take a moment to breathe and ask God for the peace and self-control to handle the situation in a way that we do not sin.