October 11, 2012 – Day 3

¹⁹ My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰ for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. ²¹ Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. ²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ^[1]

Do you know how often I realize that I’m not really listening? I have become a master at tuning people out particularly if I have no real interest in what they are saying. Now, of course, that is just plain rude but worse, it causes me to not hear what I need to hear in order to make the correct and appropriate response to what is being said. Gratefully I am not generally one to flash hot, but many are. I have discovered over the many years that have now been a pastor that many of the disputes in the church and between couples could have been avoided and even alleviated simply if people had been able to actually hear what the other said and understand it.

There is a difference between anger and righteous indignation. There is a time to show some balanced indignation, anger that dos not lead to sin, like Jesus demonstrated in the temple as He turned over the tables and chased out the moneychangers. Raw anger is far different and generally is irrational and out of proportion to the offence. James says very emphatically that such anger “does not bring about the righteous life God desires.”

If you are one that constantly hears people asking why you are so angry all the time then perhaps you have an anger problem. If you are one that finds yourself consistently offended by the smallest things, then you probably have an anger problem. James does suggest a remedy, however. “Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.” Some may find this counsel shallow and ineffective but James does not delineate how exactly to get rid of the moral filth. There are reasons for your anger. There are situations and circumstances you have experienced in your life, perhaps very early on, that still impact you in a negative counter-productive way. Don’t run away from it. It will follow you. Get a handle on what lies behind your anger and then submit it all to the Lord. Get in the word and submit to it entirely because it is the only thing that can save you. Be doers of the word and not hearers only!

Dear Lord, we humbly submit all of our anger to You and place it at Your feet. You know what lies behind our anger. We surrender all the moral filth we have been carrying and hiding, hoping no one would see where we have been and what we have been through. Break the silence in our lives and help us to own what angers us so that we can be whole. We confess that we are not good listeners, that we talk more than we listen. Help us today to exercise some shut mouth grace. Then give us a passion for Your Word, to read it, hear it, study it, memorize it, and meditate upon it. Amen.