Build Your Natural House!

Excerpt from SPIRITUAL LEADERSIP by J. Oswald Sanders

Can this be right? An angry leader? Indeed, Jesus had this quality and when we use it righthly, we follow Him. In Mark 3:5, Jesus looked "at them in anger."

Holy anger is the counterpart to Love. Both are part of the nature of God. Jesus' love for the man with the withered hand aroused His anger against those who would deny him healing. Jesus' love for God's house made Him angry at the sellers and buyers who had turned the temple into a "den of robbers." (Matthew 21:13)

Great helpers--people who turn the tide and change the direction of events--have been angry at injustice and abuse that dishonors God and enslaves the weak. Wilberfore moved heaven and earth to emancipate slaves in Englnad and eliminate the slave trade--and he was angry!

Martin Luther calimed that he "never did anything well until his wrath was excited, and then he could do anything well."

But holy anger is open to abuse. Many who feel it allow anger to become their downfall.

Bishop Butler teaches six conditions that make anger sinful:
* When, to favor a resentment or feud, we imagine an injury done to us.
* When an injury done to us becomes in our minds, greater than it really is.
* When, without real injury, we feel resentment on account of pain or inconvenience.
* When indignation rise too high, and overwhelms our ability to restrain.
* When we gratify resentments by causing pain or harm out of revenge.
* When we are so perplexed and angry at sin in our own lives that we readily project anger at the sin we find in others.

Paul argues for holy anger when he repeats the advice of Psalm 4:4: "In your anger do not sin."  (Ephesians 4:26). This anger is not selfish and does not center on the pain you currently feel. To be free of sin such anger must be zealous for truth and purity, with the glory of God its chief objective.