Anger Pt. 4

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. James 1:19-20

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Good morning.
This week we're looking at the topic of anger from
the Bible, and you know this just reveals to us
once again how real the Bible is that the Bible
is talking about the issues of life. And as you
go into this day, I hope that you recognize that

(00:26):
if you really want God to change your life in
ways that you cannot change yourself.
Those inner ways that you're stuck in your ways of
responding to people and circumstances, and particularly this area of anger,
you can't control anger in your own heart, but you
need God to do His kind of change in your life.

(00:50):
And do you know, if you want to change in
this area of your life, you need to learn to
put God first in your life.
Take time with God every day because God is about
real life. God is not just about the church thing.
God's about life every day. Don't just come to God

(01:13):
on Sunday and go to church. Yeah, make that a big,
big part of your life, but so that God can
be a part of Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and
Thursday that we're heading into today.
This area of anger is such a big issue for
so many people. Just listen to what the Bible says

(01:35):
about our inner lives and how God wants to use
His word, the Bible, in our lives.
Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 says
For the word of God is living and active.
And sharper than any two-edged sword.
And piercing as far as the division of soul and

(01:58):
spirit of both joints and marrow and able to judge
the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
There's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things
are open and laid bare before the eyes of him
with whom we have to do.

(02:20):
Well,
The word of God is living and active and sharp.
It pierces, doesn't it, when the Bible really speaks into
your life, sometimes you think, man, that, that is speaking
straight to me. That's got my name all over it.
Well, that's God at work in your life through His word,

(02:41):
the Bible. Getting down to the real issues of your life.
After all, do you want to just live your whole
life on the surface, putting on this facade to everybody,
a mask that everything's great in your life, and yet
inside is this boiling anger just waiting to burst out
and sometimes you can't hold it in and so it
spews out on the people around you.

(03:02):
Or do you want to get down to the real
issues in your inner life that are feeding that anger
and let God do His healing work in your inner life?
If so, you need to let the pain come when
God speaks to you in your inner life. It exposes
things sometimes that we don't want exposed, but if we

(03:23):
don't expose them, if we don't let God take His
two-edged sword and use it as a scalpel.
The great physician getting to work in our inner life,
dealing with things down deep. If we don't let him
do that, then we'll never move ahead spiritually.

(03:44):
So
The next thing, if you want to put aside anger
in your life is to confess that it's harbored deep
down in your heart, and you know something, you cannot
live like God wants to help you live while you
are holding on to your right to hold a grudge

(04:06):
to someone or to be angry towards them.
You may feel you have a right, and that person
may genuinely have wronged you in a really major way.
But if you really want to be transformed by God,
you have to say I will not hold on to
my right to be angry, even if I have that right.

(04:29):
After all, God has the right to condemn me forever
after I've offended Him and broken what I knew to
be wrong and right so many times in my life.
He has the right, but in spite of having the
right to condemn me.
He's reached out to me with love and offered me forgiveness.

(04:50):
And in the same way he wants me to learn
to give forgiveness even to people who don't want it
from me but who have wronged me in an awful way.
Do you know when you come to the end of
yourself and you say, God, I choose your way and
you choose to forgive, you don't feel like forgiving, but

(05:12):
you choose to forgive and you trust God to enable
you to forgive.
Then you are walking into a new lifestyle that has
peace at the end of it, and isn't it worth
it to you to find that.
I'm John North.