From the Bible we learn that God also knows anger for from the Bible we learn that He gets angry with us whenever we disobey his Laws: “Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?”(Deut 31:7)
Another example when God gets angry:
“And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp“ (Num 11:1).
These are just two of the many examples the Bible gives us about when God’s gets angry. We see that anger is a godly emotion also, for God has it. But God is God right? He can handle anger, He has all the right in the world to be angry with us whenever we sin, for we do disobey Him more often than we ought to. The difference between God's anger and ours is that He can deal with anger while we cannot. Whenever we are angry we loose control over our feelings, emotions, and at times over ourselves and we can become physical in our anger. Is this biblical? Does not the Bible tell us that we ought to: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice”(Eph.4:31)?
Does not the Bible for a fact repeat us over and over again that we “… also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth”(Col.3:8)? The answer is yes. We need to get rid of our anger as soon as we can. If we get angry we need not our anger let get the better of us. There is a differencebetween anger and anger. The anger that Paul spoke of in Eph. 4:26; , was the kind of an anger that only lasted a shortl while, in fact he spoke of a constructive anger, that would benefit the kingdom of God, for it would arise a person to act for God. Let me give you an example of this. Whenever you are obstructed by the devil in your affairs, you get angry and rebuke him, right? Well that is the kind of anger Paul spoke of. The one that lasts not long.
This kind of anger is short lived. But the ohter kind of anger, the anger which keeps you angry, which takes over your self-control, will only entice you to sin because this anger has sinful emotions like wrath, malice, blasphemy, murder, etc. These sins will only separate you from God, but these will make you feel His wrath for God hates this kind of sin. You need to understand that whenever you sin in your anger, you open the doors to Satan to enter and ruin your life. This is why the Bible repeats us over and over again, that we should put off emotions such as wrath, clamor, gossip and the like.
A good example of uncontrolled anger is given to us by King Salomon. I just love how King Salomon in his wisdom wrote it down: “A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards”(Prov 29:11). There is much wisdom in what he said. We not only will utter in our anger things we later will ultimately regret, but usually whenever we ventilate our anger, we make a fool of ourselves! This is done by the way we react and by the things we say. We all have seen or heard of examples of people who were so out of control in their anger that they have lashed out to someone hurting them badly, or they have smashed into pieces furniture and other household staff in their anger; only to later regret it deeply. Often enough, the damage is irreparable. This not only opens the doors for teh demonic but it opens the doors to divorce, court settlements, disputes etc. This is also why we need to learn to take controlof our anger.
As Christians, we must make a choice of not letting ourselves be overtaken by our anger. Anger leads us to speak rashly (Ps 106:32), and we always end up regretting the things we said. We hurt people in our anger, and we get hurt afterwards(by the things said to us by people we have hurt in our anger)when we cool off. Anger can be very destructive, especially when we fuel this anger until it gets totally out of control. Sad to say that within churches anger is often totally out of control The result is often seen in public when they disclose their sins so openly. These sins are often sins of backbiting, slander, envy and reputation killing. Those are serious offenses, not only against the Body of Christ, but against God as well.
Did you know that staying angry puts you under a curse? See for yourself: “Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel”(Gen 49:7a) You come under a curse because when you sin in your anger you give way to wrath and cruelty.. Anger must be controlled, it must be restrained. “He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly”(Prov 14:29). If you control your anger, you remain in control over your words and your emotions. In order to control your anger, you need to control your thoughts. Many times over we get offended by people without intention. We allow the words they spoke to us to take control over us up to the point where our mind spins totally out control. By then we have become so angery with that person that nobody and nothing can stop us. We lash out and we try as hard as we can to hurt that person any way we can. That is wrong brethren! We cannot go around this world being angry with everybody who might have offended or hurt us in the past. It is not the Christian thing to do.
People often do not even realize they have hurt of offend us by what they have said or maybe done. Usually it is done unintentionally. If you are offended and angry by something they said, just say so, clear the air between you, but do not let your anger get out of control. You will soon realize that there was no intention in hurting you. We have to learn to control ourselves, our thoughts and our hearts. We must change our attitude towards others, especially as Christians. This we do by meditating and prayer of God’s Word. Surrender to the Holy Spirit who will give you self-control (Gal 5:22). Remember that a “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger”(Prov.15:1). This is good medicine.
If you keep up stirring your anger which is bottling inside of you, you will reap total anger. It becomes a never ending circle. The result is that you will get more angrier and you will end up sinning more and more. You will always reap what you sow. If you are an angry person, who goes around life hurting other people in your anger, chances are that sooner or later you will get hurt by one of those people yourself. A good example of forgiveness is Joseph, who had every right to be angry with his brothers for betraying and selling him off as a slave. Instead, he chose to forgive them (Gen. 30 etc). God blessed him immensely for this. Joseph chose not to be angry but to love and forgive them instead. We ought to forgive one another (Mk 11:25). Joseph knew that his God, the God of Israel was with him and would bring him out of his situation. He did not dwell on anger and resentment and whatever more emotions he could have felt. Instead, he trusted God. And God blessed his obedience. Read his story, it may encourage you.
Brethren, let us not remain angry, especially with each other. Give no foot to the devil for he will come and destroy you if you do. If anger gets out of control you get into his territory. You will loose control over yourself and he will come right into your life with his demons to fuel your mind with more anger, hatred and whatever malice he can think of. God knows this and this is exactly what He wants you to be prevented from. He knows that our human emotions can sometimes reach high peaks and when they do, we might loose control, God made our humand emotions for us to control and not for our emotions to take control over us. Emotions we may have if it benefits His Kingdom, if it benefits us. But surely you will agree with me that anger that is gotten out of control is not godly in any way and can never benefit His Kingdom, can it?
A word of caution here: Anger which is out of control is under the control of demons! These demons will never operate alone, they will soon invite demons of wrath, of hatred, jealousy and whatever more into their new home (you) to destroy you. That is all they out there to do, to utterly destory you. Do not give the devil this foothold in your life. Another reason why we should restrain from anger is this: As Christians,as brothers and sisters in Christ, we are put on earth and chosen by God to give the good example of Kingdom Living to unbelievers. What example are we then giving to the secular world if we fight and quarrel and let our anger get the better of us? Think about it! It will bring you more perspective on this issue. It did for me!