[Christians Only Please ! ] How can I discern the difference between sinful anger and godly anger?

Question

God Bless!

Answer 1

You are talking about self-righteous anger (sinful) and righteous anger (not sinful). The answer to your question is somewhat difficult, because lots of people are tempted to perceive their self-righteous anger as righteous anger and do a lot of work trying to justify how this is so.

That said...one place to start is to ask big questions. "What is my stake in this situation?" "What is being threatened?" "What personal investment do I have here?"

Let me give you an example. One thing that offends me is blasphemy. This may be the only thing that offends me anymore. Do I have righteous anger when I hear someone blaspheming, or is my anger self-righteous? To determine this, I need to ask myself questions. "What is my stake in this situation?" Well, my stake is that I love God, after having lived many years deliberately outside of his grace, blaspheming him to my little deluded heart's content. So those are two things to consider. Arguably, my anger is righteous, in that I love God and am offended when someone says something prideful about him or themselves in relation to him. But I also have remorse for my own blasphemy in the past. That is, I am "wounded" by others' sin...but it is my sin too. Other people are offering me a mirror of my former self, and it is difficult to look into it. So, arguably my anger is self-righteous. Now that I do not blaspheme but love and serve the Lord, am I to expect everyone else to do the same? ... How do I determine what is the truth about my anger in this situation? I pray. I ask God to teach me how to love those who hate him, because I don't know how to do it. I put the issue of "righteous or self-righteous?" on the burner, and I let God guide me, in the hopes that ultimately he will lead me to clarity.

"What is being threatened?" Well, nothing, really. Others' blasphemy of God does not diminish God at all, and God does not need me to defend him, as he is perfectly capable of defending himself. So, nothing is threatened, except for my own placidness, really. Leading me to believe that there is something self-righteous in my anger.

"What personal investment do I have here?" Well, I used to live outside of God's grace, as I said. Now that I have accepted Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of my soul, I am invested in carrying the Truth of salvation to other people. I hope for them the transformation of their life that God has granted to me. When I hear them blaspheming, I feel bad for them, and know that they are far from God, who is the only one who can heal their hatred and anger. I would hope for them to come to God for mercy and guidance, but that is outside of my control. The only thing I can do is testify with my life and words. If others reject this, so be it. It is not my job to convert them. That power is God's and God's alone. When I consider all of this, my anger subsides. This is God's world, he can and does handle all of it, so why am I so upset when people blaspheme him? They cannot harm God one whit by their words. The thing they can do is harm others, because others will hear their gibes and insults and get their own hatred of God and life all stirred up as well. And this makes me angry, then--that the faithless find it necessary to rally people to the "cause," which is a non-cause...an empty set, death. This is when I turn to God's word and learn to expect such behavior and such mass-delusion and hatred. Which again leads me to trust in God, and God alone, to save this world.

I find that when I examine my own anger, it is mostly self-righteous. Righteous anger is a rare thing in the world, because it requires a pure heart and a cleansed soul. Most anger is self-righteous and therefore sinful. I would just encourage you to thoroughly examine your thoughts, feelings, and motives to determine what about your anger is self-serving. It helps to have others who are faithful to Christ corroborate your conclusions, too.

Answer 2

Jesus got angry at the people selling in the temple. God's anger at Sodem was so great, because if their rebelliousness and sin was so great that He destroyed them. So anger is not always sinful. Reacting irrationally in anger and being cruel is sinful. To have righteous anger at people trying to bring others down into their sin or at those who ridicule God' word or character is the type of anger that God also has.

Answer 3

Godly anger would be something that would make God mad. That pretty much narrows it down to blaspheming the Father's name. If you have specifics, e-mail me and I'll try to help.

Answer 4

Ask yourself what your motive is for being angry.

Is it personal, or is it something that you feel would make the Lord angry?

Either way, we need to be careful how we react with our anger. Even if it is godly anger, you should ask for wisdom in the situation.

Answer 5

Depends on the focus of your anger and how you react. Righteous Indignation is, of course, towards unrighteousness. Yet if your anger is towards someone for wronging you, no matter if they are at fault or not. Just remember "If God is for me, who can be against me." This means God's got your back. You no longer need to defend yourself as long as you are in Him and he is in you.

Answer 6

Rigteous anger will come when Gods laws are broken...
people who blaspheme here will be reported by Christians see what I mean?

Answer 7

Sinful is your own thoughts.
Godly is anger over blaspheming and worshipping other gods.

Answer 8

Anger is anger. No matter how you try to break it apart it equals the same thing.

Answer 9

I would check out the following sermon outline. It's a solid message on the issue of anger:

http://www.ihop.org/Publisher/File.aspx?id=1000001095

Answer 10

what? anger is anger? are you trying to say that theres a right kind of anger and wrong kind of anger?