Anger

‘Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry – but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life’ (vv.26–27, MSG). Although anger is not intrinsically sinful, it often leads to sin. In anger, the devil sometimes finds a foothold in our lives that easily becomes an addiction. Anger is an emotion that we need to handle with care. On the other hand there is a positive side to anger. It can be a God-given emotion. God expresses anger (5:6), but of course he does so under control. Jesus’ anger was a righteous anger towards sin. It was Wilberforce’s passionate hatred of slavery that eventually led to the abolition of the slave trade.