In daily life, we will be confronted with things that will not go the way we wanted them to do, and we have a choice – we can respond in our flesh in anger, or we can look to Christ.  God does not want our outward obedience merely – he desires our hearts to be His.  How do we fight for a heart that is soft and loving, as a result of the gospel?

James 1:19-21 – “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; ²⁰ for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. ²¹ Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

Often times we consider what it means to be “doers of the word” and what it is to be “a good Christian” and think about specific things – like don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal, etc.  These are all true of course, we ought not to do those things, but God here talks about a condition of the heart, anger, immediately before talking about being “doers of the word”.  Why is that?  Why choose anger?  Whether or not our heart is prone to anger is a good barometer of where our heart is with God.  Consider that God saved his harshest rebukes for the self-righteous pharisees who probably lived a better life than any of us outwardly, but Jesus called them “whitewashed tombs” (Matt 23:27).  They looked good on the outside, but were dead on the inside.

What is required for someone to be angry?  Two things:  Unmet expectations and a lack of faith in God’s sovereign goodness.  We have the hope of Heaven and eternity with Christ, secured by Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection.  With this in view, how does that change our perspective?  What loss have we actually incurred by an unmet expectation?  Further, God has promised to use all things for good, for those who love God and have been called according to His purpose.  Do you believe that?  Do you believe that God wants to use our trials to allow us to love others sacrificially and supernaturally to display the gospel?  Do you believe that God wants to use you and your trials to grow your own faith, and strength for ministry?  Sustained anger is a  heart denies these truths and focuses in on self rather than God.  Put another way, sustained anger is evidence of idolatry and unbelief.

We’re told plainly that anger does not produce the righteousness of God – so what does? Meekly receiving the implanted word of God.  What does that look like?  For one to be meek, they must acknowledge their own weakness.  For us as Christians, this looks like our coming to God daily, continually, and acknowledging that in our flesh we have no hope, and so we look to Christ, and desire for our lives to be transformed by Him through receiving and submitting to His Word.

Sustained meekness before God, produces a soft heart, that is able to forgive and love in ways the world cannot understand.  A heart that has received the implanted Word of God, finds in God Himself joy, and is therefore freed from expectations of anything beyond Himself.  To illustrate, if someone told you, you would receive $50,000,000 dollars later today – would you care if you lost a penny on the way to receive it?  Of course not, but that is essentially what anger in our heart reveals.  Jesus is our treasure – greater than we can possibly imagine, and we have the Holy Spirit in us by faith, a guarantee of our inheritance for eternity.  Our battleground as Christians is to find in Jesus our heart’s satisfaction.  This is what we strive for when we go to God in His Word.  This is what God promises us when we seek Him there.

I hope this finds each of you well, and God richly blesses His time with you in His Word.  Taste and see that the Lord is good, and He is greater than anything else the world could offer.

Grace and Peace,

Adam