There have been a few times in my life when I experienced what I would call Righteous Anger. In each of these cases I was working and came across a case where a child or elderly person had been hurt or abused. In those times I was angry at the person who would hurt a defenseless child or older person. So not all anger is sin we know this from Ephesians 4:26 were we are told “In your anger do not sin”. We know that God has gotten angry. Exodus 4:14 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses…, Judges 3:8 The anger of the Lord burned against Israel… and Jeremiah 51:45 Come out of her, my people! Run for your lives!
Run from the fierce anger of the Lord. In each of these cases God was angry at sin and unbelief. Obviously if God can be angry, then anger is not automatic sin. God has righteous anger; He gets angry with people when they live in sin and refuse to turn from their evil ways. At the same time God is loving and ever so patient with the sinner. (John 3:16, I John 4:8, Romans 2:4)
The first key to righteous anger is that it is directed at sin. Anger must be controlled by patience and love. If your anger is missing any of these things, then it most likely is not righteous anger. To illustrate, in the New Testament we see that Jesus got angry, Mark 3:5 He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” The man held out his hand, and it was restored! Here Jesus is angry and saddened by the Pharisees and the hardness of their hearts.
Jesus was motivated to do good: a key to our anger. Does the anger move us to do good and help people? Matthew 21:12 Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. Here we see Jesus angry at how the people had misused God’s house and had simply turned it into a business to make money. Here again Jesus is motivated by wrong and puts His energy into action to right the wrong. Hence, if we are moved by righteous anger it should move us into motion to in some way work to correct the wrong and/or help the hurt and defenseless. If we allow the Spirit to control us then when we become angry, we will see that we are motivated to right a wrong, not attack a person.
Let us be moved by love for God and people. Patient in how we express our anger and how we deal with people. We will speak truth in love to help lead people to Christ or if they are Christians to restore their relationship. Righteous anger will lead us to a godly confrontation of evil and sin which stands against God’s word and truth. Righteous anger will work to fix the wrong and restore people in God’s love.
Anchor In The Storm 