Dear Christian, Are You Making Too Much of a Fuzz Over Somebody's Act of Offending You?

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Whenever I realize I'm fuming with unforgiveness, God always chastises me and I hear the conviction, "You're having an elevated opinion of yourself."  Now it's only natural to get mad when somebody offends you but to become a roaring lion or a raging bull against the person is definitely uncalled for.  Anger itself is not a sin but Christians are called not to sin when they're angry (Acts 4:26).  There's a difference between you got mad at someone vs. being unusually angry at someone just like righteous anger is different from unrighteous anger.

Christians have the right and duty to get mad whenever sin prevails or whenever Satan gets hold of one's neighborhood with ungodliness.  It's not a sin to get mad when somebody falsely accuses you but it becomes a sin when that anger leads to ungodly thoughts and deeds.  It becomes easy to confuse Christian duty with getting personal when one's anger spirals out of control.  As the Bible says, anger is not a sin but when you're angry please don't sin.  Christians are entitled to fume about any immoral activity in the neighborhood but to start taking the law into one's own hands or to right a wrong with another wrong.  Christians may not be living a lifestyle of unrighteousness and sin but one thing is certain, they're not yet glorified from sin they're still being saved from sin after they got saved from the penalty of sin.

Many times Christians can confuse righteous or holy anger but unrighteous or self-righteous anger towards people.  There's the statement, "If you know the accusations aren't true, why get angry?"  When one is falsely accused, the false accuser seeks dominance over the falsely accused.  What can be bad is that sometimes Christians can and may instead of feeling sorry for the false accuser and praying for them, ends up wanting to get angry.  Although Christians know they're not saved by works and their good works are but God's grace but they can lose to their pride of life battles if they're self-reliant.  Instead of rejoicing and thanking God for the trials, it's sometimes possible for a Christian to really do something stupid all because at that one moment in life they confuse righteous anger with self-righteous anger.

Christians also need to keep their pride in check.  Sometimes, Christians can end up praying like the Pharisees never mind that their changed life and hatred for sin were by God's grace (1 Corinthians 6:11, Ephesians 2:10, Titus 2:11-14).   Sometimes, they're just angry because their pride got crushed and hurt never mind that Christian life has always been a call to humility not pride.  It's never been, "Look what I did." but rather "Look what God did."  It's never been the Christian doing good works to be praised by men but for men to praise their Father in Heaven.  Instead, it's always been pray for those enemies, keep praying because they're the mission field and the real enemies are Satan and his devils, not unsaved sinners.


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