Most people would not consider anger a sin. Hey, it’s not my fault. It’s YOUR fault. YOU made me angry by pulling in front of me. You made me angry, wife, by not buying toilet paper when I told you we were running low. You made me angry, kids, by goofing around and wrestling when I told you to get in bed. YOU, YOU, YOU….” 

A few weeks ago I pulled onto a side street out of the parking lot of a local grocery store, and suddenly, a horn was blaring at me. When I looked in my rear-view mirror there was a person behind me gesturing obscenely and apoplectically (I hope you’re impressed at my vocabulary) and yelling at me, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I hadn’t seen him and I’d made him hit his brakes and slow down for a few seconds.

Now, I don’t live in New York City, where this would probably be normal behavior. I live in a small town where you can be anywhere in 7 minutes. So I’m sure I didn’t make this guy late for any appointments. But he was sure angry. I thought, “Man, you must be really annoyed all day long if you got this upset because I pulled in front of you.”

Most people would not consider anger a sin. Hey, it’s not my fault. It’s YOUR fault. YOU made me angry by pulling in front of me. You made me angry, wife, by not buying toilet paper when I told you we were running low. You made me angry, kids, by goofing around and wrestling when I told you to get in bed. YOU, YOU, YOU….”

How can anger be a sin when others cause me to be angry? Hey, it’s their fault, right?

We’ll look at that in a minute. But the first thing we need to remember is that God commands us not to give in to anger. Anger is a sin (most of the time). So how do we overcome anger? Here are 6 powerful keys:

1. We can overcome anger by remembering that anger is a sin.

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. Psalm 37:8

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Ephesians 4:31

Usually, anger is a sin. There are exceptions. For example God himself exercises righteous anger at sin and actions that dishonor him:

In Matthew 21:12-13 Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple…

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

In Mark 3:5, Jesus feels righteous anger toward the Pharisees for their hardness of heart:

And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Jesus was not only angry but he was grieved at the same time by their sinful condition. He was righteous in his anger at them, but saddened by how lost they were. What a lesson for us!

2. We can overcome anger by understanding the roots of our anger.

God’s word tells us that our anger is not caused by other people, but springs out of flesh and its sinful desires.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. James 4:1-2

James doesn’t say the cause of our quarrels and fights is those idiots who sin against us. No, he says that our “passions” and desires within us are the roots of our anger. He says we “covet and cannot obtain,” so we fight and quarrel. In other words, we want something and can’t get it, so we get angry and fight and quarrel to try to get what we want.

Here is the most helpful question to ask ourselves when we are feeling angry:

What is it that I want right now that I’m not getting?

This question has changed my life. This question has helped me again and again to overcome the temptation to anger in my life. I try to ask myself this question when I’m tempted to be angry. What is it I want right now that I’m not getting? Well, I want that person to respect me. I want them to see things my way. I want that person to think well of me.

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