Table of Contents
1. What is Righteous Anger?
2. Why do we Experiences Righteous Anger?
3. How is is Righteous Anger different from Every-day Anger?
4. How do we apply Righteous Anger Usefully?
5. How does Righteous Anger destroy lives?
6. Why is it necessary to regulate or subdue Righteous Anger?
7. What is the end-result of regulating Righteous Anger?
Introduction:
When always being a nice guy and always being the better person by, “killing them with kindness,” we tend to experience certain frustration in the actions of people around us. The saying, “Nice guys always finish last,” is biblically true; and there is a reason why the nicest people in this world tend to experience poverty whilst the most selfish people tend to be wealthy. How can we reverse this reality? Always being the Nice Guy, how can we stop people from taking advantage of us; and how can we convert our kindness into financial stability? Let us explore!
What is Righteous Anger?
The only way to understand Righteous Anger is, first, to understand how it is different from everyday anger. Anger is a natural respionse. It is an emotion. Every emotion compells some sort of physical act, or prevalance. For example: true love is described as putting somebody else before you. To die so that your loved one may live is the ultimate display of love. After all, if a man died for someone whom he had never met, would you say that he acted out of pure love? A Marine who dies for his country- he Loved his country more than he loved himself!
Another example is fear. When a we are frightened, (an emotion,) we physically act upon that fear as the result of our nervous system causing our muscles to tense and for us to either jump and/or for our heart rate to increase. Such a response to emotion is completely out of our immediate control! However, by being exposed to the same frightening situation, you can, over time, train your mind and body to be desensitized to the frightening stimulus; and stimuli, such as bombs exploding around you and bullets wizzing by your ear will soon no longer cause you to jump or be nervous; and your heart rate will naturally find its level even in intense situations! If we can regulate our responses to our emotion of fear, we can also regulate our responses to the other emotions as well!
Another example is: when a man loves a woman, that emotion propels him to buy her flowers and candy and to sacrifice his own cravings and desires in order to show her how much he loves her. This is Not regulating emotion, but a display of being controlled by emotion. Furthermore, when a man learns that the woman he loves does not love him back, he may regulate that emotion by ceasing to buy her flowers and by delving back in to his own cravings and desires- acting for himself- as opposed to acting selflessly in the light of love. This regulation is an emotional barrier which protects a man’s thought processes. It works both ways. All that being recognized, regulating emotion is the key to success in any given situation in life- personally, financially and spiritually.
So, how does that all describe Righteous Anger? Simply put: Righteous Anger is not a quick-twitch response to a situation. It is a well-thought-out- time proven understanding. Righteous Anger is the discernment that people are doing wrong to you or around you. Righteous Anger is the recognition that people are not following the direction given to them by God, but doing the opposite! (Whether they know that or not is a topic of a different book, altogether, but the New Testament covers that topic in depth. The purpose of this treatise is to cover a small, small part of The Problem.)
Why do we Experiences Righteous Anger?
Simply put, we experience Righteous Anger out of frustration! We are frustrated that the people around us will not, “fall in line!” We are righteously angry, because we all know the difference between good and evil, but we do not always employ that understanding as the deciding factor of our actions. You can even experience Righteous Anger at your own self- you can be angry at yourself for doing stupid shit, thinking in an unprofitable way or by acting-out against your own interests- such as commuting road rage! This is why understanding and exercising Righteous Anger is so important- if not amongst your fellow man, but, more importantly, against yourself. After all, if you do not forgive yourself, how could you expect your Maker to forgive you? !!!
How is is Righteous Anger different from Every-day Anger?
That brings us to the next section: how is Righteous Anger different from everyday anger? Obviously, if you become angry with yourself, that is the ultimate display of Righteous Anger! You are reflecting upon what is good and right; and you, therefore, have made a judgement against yourself that you need to correct that thought process. You convict yourself of your sins. Alas, God had already convicted you of that sin before you ever realized it! Righteous Anger may bring you to this realization. This realization is one of the supporting columns of your faith! Once you realize that you have sinned and continue in that sin, you have the opportunity to correct thoughts and actions.
When Jesus was breathing his last breaths on the cross, he said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do!” His words- the mixture of true love with forgiveness may seem to be removed from what Righteous Anger is; however, it was only through Righteous Anger that Jesus had realized their sins and, also, how Jesus, within Himself, understood that He needed to show compassion to everybody- even those who were in the present act of murdering Him! (Using the word, “present,” in that sentence is no mistake! Jesus’s death was a present, a gift, to us! Again, that is a topic of a different book; so let us not get off topic!)
How do we apply Righteous Anger Usefully?
In that example, I described to you how Righteous Anger differs from every day anger, for, if Jesus was filled with every day anger, instead of proclaiming that his murderers should be forgiven, Jesus would have said, “Lord, take revenge on these sinful, murderous people! Lord, take revenge in My name!” Jesus did NOT say that! He said the opposite. In an instant of road rage, you can display one of your fingers ever-so prominently in order to convey your message to your trespassers and (also) to feed your own ego-within! That is an example of every day anger. Or …. You can take a moment to exercise compassion for your trespasser and entertain thoughts such as, “That person must be having a bad day, and they need to take it out on somebody. Here I am, and I was their punching bag. I forgive them for abusing me; and, furthermore, I thank God for being blessed by being available for them to express their anger without harming anybody else!” THAT, my Brothers and Sisters, an example of Righteous Anger! You may be angry at your transgressor, righteously; however, a true Warrior of The Word fights that battle on a higher level than His oppressors by being an example of the Light- making everybody else who saw the transgression witnesses of His Light!
How does Righteous Anger destroy lives?
Pride. A person who understands and employs Righteousness Anger is susceptible to being proud, or of thinking that they are better than those around them! This is the ultimate trap set by Righteous Anger- thinking you are better than your fellow man. Be careful to regulate the emotions you feel as the result of your Righteous Anger, because your emotions ALWAYS cause physical action- whether you are aware of it or not. Pride, one of the seven deadly sins, is the most contemptuous, the most invisible and the most difficult to regulate. When a person, or a nation of people, walk around thinking as though and acting like they, alone, are God’s chosen people- that the rest of the people of this world are not God’s children, …. that is such a poisonous, poisonous perception- a non-inclusive culture for which no final solution could ever be reached!
Why is it necessary to regulate or subdue Righteous Anger?
The last paragraph answers why it is necessary to regulate and to subdue our Righteous Anger. Sometimes, people are not ready to experience our Righteous Anger- not spiritually, not emotionally/mentally and, many times, not historically! Jesus is the perfect example of how people are not always prepared to experience our Righteous Anger! After all, when Jesus exercised his Righteous Anger on the people of Jerusalem, they did not accept it with grace; rather, they Crucified him! Were those people not ready for his Righteous Anger? Or is the opposite true? …. Were those who condemned Jesus so, so prepared for His Righteous Anger that they hated themselves so mush that they had to rid of that catalyst which was turning their hearts of stone into the heart of love? Those who acted against the wishes of Pontius Pilate were so filled with every day anger within themselves that, outside of themselves- reigned an anger which they deemed to be, “Righteous”! The end result of that is that they killed their own king- their own God, the Son of Man! After which, “they were cut to the heart!” In NOT regulating their Righteous Anger, (or an anger which they had confused as being Righteous,” the result was an insurmountable loss!
What is the end-result of regulating Righteous Anger?
Similarly, such as in a road rage incident: Yes, the person who cut-you-off may be doing the work of Lucifer; however, if you regulate your response to your anger, (though righteously founded,) the result is always Life for you. If you choose to entertain their trespass with your own trespass in the guise of Righteous Anger, the result may very well be Death! That is why it is necessary to regulate your Righteous Anger!