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Christian Living

Overcoming Addictions 05/31/13

Will God Help Me Get Rid of this Anger?

angry man

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls. But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. James 1:19-25

This is a great passage and it discusses the possibility that we should put our faith in action. As we continue in our recovery journey, we need to remember that we must do what God's word says and not just listen to it. We must put it into practice.

There are several things we can pull from this set of verses:

Get a grip on our anger. Many times as we begin this journey from our addictions, we find that underneath the substances or sexual addiction there is anger. After we have left the addiction and have become abstinent from it, then the anger comes with a vengenance. The passage from James makes it very clear how to handle the anger with this progression "be swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to get angry." I find that if I listen attentively and don't talk so much it makes it easier to not get angry. Verse 20 says that "human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires" God wants us to be righteous and anger is not a part of that.

Get rid of the filth and evil. We have the Word of God planted in us and there is no room with the word of God for filth and evil. I Peter 1:16 says "Be holy because I am holy." God is holy and he commands us to be holy. What we see and what we do affect that holiness.

Get on board. Verse 22 says "But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves." We can become really good Christians in front of others. In ancient plays they would sometimes use masks to play different parts in the same play. They would lift one up and put it over their face and then when they needed to, they'd change it up to another. We can put on masks as Christians. We can look good when we go to meetings or in church, but then when we are alone the other mask appears. We become someone else. God's word is plain - we must not just listen to the Word; we must do what it says.

We are given a  promise that if we do what the word says, we will be blessed. I don't know about you, but I want to be blessed. It is by following God's word that we are given his power to react and behave a new way. WE must get a grip on the anger and get rid of the filth and then get on board and put action into our recovery and our Christian life.

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