From Anger to Grace
Do you have trouble responding to anger in your life? Talk to a mentor about it.
Please open your Bible and read Mark 3:1-6.
Ever been cut off in traffic? Had someone cut in front of you in line? Gotten a bad haircut? If so, you may have felt angry.
Jesus got angry too, but He only got angry about important stuff. His anger was righteous anger and directed against those whose minds were so jaded and hearts so hard that they would rather follow their own laws and let a man suffer than see him healed!
Our own anger usually isn’t so honorable. We often get angry about frivolous things while not getting angry about stuff that really matters. However, Jesus’ response to the Pharisees gives us a helpful principle that we can apply in our own lives to respond better any time we’re angry: Turn anger into grace.
“[Jesus] looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.” (Mark 3:5) Instead of lashing out at those who’d angered Him, Jesus turned His anger into a wonderful good deed. He turned His anger into an act of grace.
When we’re angry, we need to respond somehow. Bottling up our anger (or, for that matter, jealousy, or depression, or anxiety) will only lead to more inner turmoil. So from now on, let’s choose to respond in the way Jesus did: By following Jesus’ example of turning anger into grace and doing something good: “We love because God loved us first.” (1 John 4:19, CEV)
Anger, turned into good! And maybe, through this human act of grace, someone who doesn’t yet know Jesus “may see your good deeds and glorify God” (1 Peter 2:12) and by your act of grace come to know the greatest grace they’ll ever know: God’s grace.
Question: When do you get angry most often, and what opportunities are there in those situations to turn that anger into grace?
I’m a bit late coming in, but I have a little different take on this –
When I went to Mark read the passage I was convicted by Mark 3:2, “They were watching Him …so that they might accuse Him.”
After church last Sunday the elders and I had a meeting about a man being considered for eldership. I articulated that I didn’t know if I could trust the man: he did a lot of good deeds for me, and I wondered if he might be “chumming up” to the pastor for the purpose of furthering his cause. The other men said that they didn’t think he was self serving in any way – he does a lot of good deeds for others as well. I got to thinking about a time this man unselfishly loaded up his horses and packed out my whole elk camp from five miles back in the wilderness. This was a couple of years before I even became pastor of his church.
The Lord showed me that my mistrust of this man was not based on anything he had done or didn’t do. My suspicions were rooted in my experience with another man in the church I pastored prior. He had been a key leader and actively served the church but then fell, later admitting that everything he had done had been for self recognition. I realized that I was unfairly superimposing my negative experience with first man onto the new man being considered for eldership.
So…thanks for this devo. It opened my eyes.
Excellent teaching! Thank you Darren!!
Turning our actions and irritations into acts of grace!!!
I can remember some years ago in college, that the psychology professor gave an example of atonomy. He had, mistakenly, pulled in front of another driver. Expecting a barrage of anger hurled towards him, he was surprised by the other drivers response. The man smiled graciously at him and signalled with his hand to go ahead instead of the usual response done in angeer and frustration. The incident turned out to have a good feeling for all involved! That man, Christian or not, was taking personal responsibility for his action, turning bad into good. At times most of us have experienced that grace and we remember the good coming from it. We can also remember those more unfortunate times where we “lost it” and the ugly dark feeling that came with that. God made us that way. When we do good, we are reciprocally rewarded with good, and bad; the same way. As Christians, when we take the personal responsibility to turn those moments into an advantage point for Christ, God sees that endeavor. People also see, and as the devotional writer so well put it, people are compelled to turn to Christ by our proper, Christlike, response to those types of situations. And if our family or other guest is riding in the car with us, we are making a lasting impression on them also, including our children who are watching our testimony by exxample, right? What are we teaching them? Hebrews talks of us being surroounded with a great cloud of witnesses, and some of those witnesses are flesh and blood! God, through the Holy Spirit, will give us the strength and presence of mind to act out righteousness if we choose. To some, bad habits break slowly so just keep trying and practicing in the Name of Jesus! If you fall, get up again, brush yourself off, and go at it again like a good fighter; fight the good fight of faith! :-)
Thanks, Darren. I needed to read this today. I have a short fuse and get ticked off over mundane stuff. I am learning that getting angry–about unimportant circumstances–is not helpful or useful. Turning anger into grace is interesting and challenging to me. Something to pray for and exercise.