By Dr. Don Dunlap
Pastoral Counselor
Our flesh will fail us but the Holy Spirit will empower us to gain victory over our sinful anger.
Family Counseling Ministries -
A Christian who makes excuses for his or her angry spirit
cannot live a life that is pleasing to God. If we are quick-tempered and given
to angry outbursts, we sabotage our most earnest efforts to be light and salt.
Our greatest strategy for conquering anger is to memorize
God’s Word diligently and consistently.
We continue with our consideration of how to develop a
practical plan to overcome the sinful habit of angry responses.
After we repent of our anger and decide that we expect to win
the war, the third step is to memorize scripture verses that relate to God’s
perspective of anger. These verses will serve as an effective weapon with which
to fight the spiritual battle to overcome sin. God’s Word is alive, powerful
and able to effect life-changing results.
The flesh will fail us but the Holy Spirit will empower us to
gain victory over anger.
Our natural inclinations betray us. We cannot control
anger by a mere resolution of our will. God commands us to conquer anger, and
our only hope for attaining victory lies in learning to think with the mind of
Christ. The Holy Spirit accomplishes this transformation of our mind as we
memorize key Bible passages that refer to anger.
The fourth step to overcome anger is to reinforce our will by
a bond of accountability. This principle is one of the most powerful means to
overcome temptation. We set ourselves up for failure when we have only
ourselves to answer to.
When we ask a trusted Christian friend to hold us
accountable for our commitment we obey the command of James 5:16,
Confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another,
that you may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails
much.
Each time that we contact our accountability partner to ask
for prayer when we are tempted to react in anger, we greatly increase our
chance for success. If, for example, we lose the battle against anger three
times each week, we will experience over one hundred fifty defeats per year.
If, during the first year of our spiritual battle, our accountability partner
helps us to reduce these defeats by half, we will make significant progress
toward being free from anger.
God wants us to keep running for the goal, regardless of how
many times we stumble and fall.
The fifth step to overcome anger is to be determined to
press on in spite of failure and discouragement. The writer of Proverbs 24:10
exhorts us, “If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength.”
Jesus tells us in Matthew 26:41, always to be on prayerful alert because “the
spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Christians do not have the option to
give up in the battle against anger.
The final step is to learn to live in the fear of God. We
read in Proverbs 16:6, “By the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil.” A
Christian cannot justify sinful anger unless he or she chooses to temporarily
ignore God’s presence in his or her life.
We must seek to develop a moment-by-moment awareness that
God is watching and weighing every one of our words, thoughts, actions and
attitudes. God reminds us in Proverbs 5:21,
The ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord; He ponders
all his goings.
Dr. Don
Dunlap, a pioneer in the placement of Pastoral Counselors in the offices of
Christian physicians, has conducted over twenty thousand appointments during
his ministerial career. His counseling practice includes adults, children and
families in crisis. Dr. Dunlap is committed to facilitating a network of
telephone counselors. His goal is to provide help for the many people unable to
meet face to face with a competent Bible-based counselor. For a complete
library of Dr. Dunlap’s articles, indexed by topic, go to Family Counseling Ministries. You
may also make a telephone appointment for personal counseling by clicking on Family Counseling Ministries.
Family Counseling Ministries is a Christianity.com
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